‘Eat Pray Love’ author Elizabeth Gilbert inspires in ‘Big Magic’
By Reilly McCobb
Elizabeth Gilbert is an American Author who attended NYU. She is most popular for her previous book “Eat Pray Love”, which was eventually turned into a movie. “Big Magic” was an instant New York Times Best Seller like many of her other books.
“Big Magic” is Gilbert’s way of showing her readers how to live a creative life. Gilbert clearly states in the book that she did not write this to tell people how they should or should not live their lives. Gilbert wrote this book to explain how creativity can set us free and allow us to be our true and whole self.
“Big Magic” is broken up into six sections: Courage, Enchantment, Permission, Persistence, Trust and Divinity. Gilbert’s book is essentially a pep talk to herself and her readers. She stresses the importance of living an unapologetically creative life. She encourages the reader to do things they enjoy for no reason other than the fact that it brings them happiness and joy. Each page is filled with encouragement to take the world head on and to be brave while doing it.
In “Big Magic” Gilbert admits to her own fears, failures, and self doubts. She reassures us that fear is a good thing and without it there would be no creativity. Gilbert says, “Fear is always triggered by creativity.” When fear comes knocking on our door we must welcome it and be brave.
The beauty in this book is that Gilbert believes we all have this inner divinity that is creativity. She talks about creativity not just being a thing for artists such as painting or writing, as creativity comes in all different forms.
Gilbert does a skillful job of making it clear that as creative human beings we cannot let other people control us, and tell us how we should or should not live our lives. “If people don’t like what you’re creating, just smile at them sweetly and tell them to go make their own f***ing art.” This is my favorite quote from “Big Magic.” It is powerful, honest, and relatable. Gilbert truly knows how to be bold, and it is safe to say we can trust her advice. The main lesson readers can learn from “Big Magic” is to risk being completely open with whom we are, and then we can truly find happiness.
This book should be on every college seniors reading list. It is an empowering book and shares a message that will impact college seniors getting ready to enter the real world. This book represents the beauty in failing, and not always being perfect. As Gilbert said, “we all have magic inside us.”
