Introduction — A Year of Magical Learning Project
What is A Year of Magical Learning?
A Year of Magical Learning eventually will become a book of 365 daily reflections from 365 books that I’ve read over the past few years of my life since my daughter passed away on 4/22/20.
This project is inspired by my daughter, Emilia Quinn Sears, and is the next project in our shared life purpose of “Living for 2” that we talked about in our first book, I Can’t Imagine (www.icantimaginethebook.com). If you haven’t read that yet, please check it out to learn about my amazing daughter and how she changed my life and inspired so many others to do the same. Emilia’s impact on me changed me forever! She showed me what true bravery, courage, and strength looks like. She showed me how amazing humans can be and how each of us are tiny miracles in this world. She left me with the strength and inspiration to look at this world differently, the opportunity to use my imagination again, and the ability to create a blueprint of how to live my life for the 2 of us to make the most of our time in this world together.
The reflections will be centered around the main themes of Finding Purpose, Discovering and Living Your Values, and Overcoming Loss.
How Did This Project Come to Be?
One of the activities in Emilia and my new normal of “Living for 2” was to try and always learn something new each and every day. I started reading whatever interested me for 30 minutes each morning after she passed away to do anything I could to keep pushing forward and enduring, just like Emilia would have if she were still with us. Slowly, but surely, over the course of the next year of my life I looked up and found that I had ended up reading 100+ books from all different genre’s (science, religion, spirituality, psychology, natural history, business, culture, humanity, values, etc). I didn’t care what it was, if it sounded interesting…I read it.
As time went on, I couldn’t get enough of learning new things with my daughter and was loving every minute of it. Learning became a BLAST! I’m now almost 2 ½ years removed from the start of this new life without my daughter in this physical world and we are reading about 8–10 books new books each month these days and learning more than ever in my life.
As the books started to pile up, I began to realize how much I was learning, how much I didn’t know (basically anything), and how much I wanted to share with the world to help others on their own journey’s. Life is all about giving. I began to feel pretty bad to be taking from so many amazing authors and mentors while not doing my part to give back myself. Plus, I selfishly wanted to document some of the big A-Ha’s I’ve had in my own quest for knowledge as I was finding that I was beginning to forget what I had learned occasionally. So, this project is my way of giving back, retaining the knowledge I’ve acquired, and paying it forward to anyone else that wants to hear what I’ve learned / be sparked by my thoughts and reflections.
As of today (8/10/22), I’m at 245 completed reflections and have no intention of stopping until I hit 365.
Why This Format?
Another staple of our daily “Living for 2” plan was to try and spend some time in reflection each day. Every morning since April 22cd, 2020 (The Date Emilia Passed), I’ve awoken each morning and tried to spend at least 15–30 minutes reading a reflection and writing my thoughts in a journal. We’ve never missed a day! (810 Days and Counting as of 8/8/2022)
I’ve used 3 books of daily reflections (Trusting God Day by Day by Joyce Meyer, Live and Grace | Walk in Love by Bob Goff, and The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday) to spark my own mind each morning to write in my journal and get our day started. I’ve found immense pleasure and utility in this activity and wanted to pay it forward.
I truly believe that just 10 minutes a day of hearing a new idea, question, or thought and then spending a few minutes in reflection for yourself can change your life one day at a time. That is why I choose this format to share this journey as these reflection books have meant so much to my life. My hope is that my own thoughts can be spark someone else’s thoughts each morning and help them in whatever ways I can.
What You’ll Get?
If you subscribe to follow along with this quest I’m on, you will receive 1 new book idea, a reflection, a new idea, and a question to start your day.
I appreciate you taking this journey with me and I’m hopeful my journey of better understanding my purpose can help you find and live your own.
