RING, WATCH, WALLET

[Transition to fit inside the Intro section. Keep this Quick as an early piece within a narrative]

In fact, I remember the specific moment I became a magician. It was wildly anticlimactic. It’s the spring of 2011, I’m in my college graduation robes, walking across a small stage to receive a Bachelors degree in interdisciplinary Hispanic Literature and Culture.

As they’re reading through the handful of names, time slows down (take off watch). for the last 17 years of my life, I had been the same thing. A student. A student with a wide variety of interests, but a student.

And I thought back through the years about how that title had given me permission to learn things just for the hell of it. I love being a student and I love learning. But now I didn’t know how I would be spending my time.

My friends had received these incredible job offers from places all over the world. They knew where they’d be spending their time, and what they’d be doing to earn money, and all I had was a big question mark out in front of me. I was looking for some sort of guide from a job about who I was going to be moving into the future.

Throughout this, the performer takes out his watch, money, and license, puts them into an envelope.

As I took the diploma, my student career ended. Seventeen years of learning came to an abrupt halt and suddenly I was… I guess… a full time magician? It’s not quite as exciting receiving a job offer when your boss is you.

I finished crossing the stage and nothing felt any different. But the weight of the future became immediately apparent. There was no money coming my way. There were no guidelines or instructions for how to spend my time. And no sense of identity – however misplaced – coming from what I was doing with my life.

He drops the items into an envelope. Pause, and then rips it open, showing that they’ve all vanished.

And thus begins a lifetime of reprioritization. While it’s true I sort of fell backward into the decision, so I can’t take all the credit, I realized that rather than letting time and money define who I was, I would start with me.

I would spend my time figuring out who I already was, and then cross my fingers that some semblance of money would come my way if I was thoughtful about spending whatever time I already had.

He reveals that the license and money are back in his wallet. And on the final line, he reveals the watch back on his wrist (or in his pocket if using pocket watch).