J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter, Patton Oswalt and you

Oh, and let’s toss some Joseph Campbell into the mix for good measure.

Yesterday was somebody’s birthday!

‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone’ was officially released to the public 20 years ago. The backstory of that writing process:

J.K. Rowling first had the idea for Harry Potter while delayed on a train traveling from Manchester to London King’s Cross in 1990. Over the next five years, she began to plan out the seven books of the series. She wrote mostly in longhand and amassed a mountain of notes, many of which were on scraps of paper.

She arrived in Edinburgh in 1993 with three chapters of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in her suitcase. By now she had a baby daughter, Jessica, but she continued to write in every spare moment she could find. When Joanne had finished the manuscript, she sent the first three chapters to a number of literary agents, one of whom wrote back asking to see the rest of it. She says that it was ‘the best letter I had ever received in my life’.

A letter… or email… or phone call all writers dream about! Yet even if we never achieve anything near Rowling’s level of success, Patton Oswalt’s tweet yesterday gives us a good reminder of something important:

It’s the expanding of your life and it’s always worth it. Which brings me to Joseph Campbell who famously said:

Follow your bliss.

Find that which enlivens you, which brings you joy, which makes you feel real, for which you have a genuine passion, something where your talents emerge and can be a unique part of your contribution to the world…

And do THAT!

That’s how you “expand your life”. That’s how you do something that’s “worth it”.

Over two decades ago, J.K. Rowling discovered the world of Harry Potter and her passion, talent, and persistence brought it into our world. Imagine how our collective life experience would be diminished had she NOT followed her bliss!

My advice: Think less about success and more about purpose. What are you called to do as a vocation or avocation?

Dig into yourself and discover your own bliss…

And follow that.

Expand your life. It will be worth it.