The Cost of Magic Beans

Why real self-love means honoring your dreams — and your limits.

Apr 30, 2025

There are moments — quiet, invisible ones — where a dream brushes up against the hard edge of reality.

You sit at the kitchen table, late at night, wondering if you’re foolish for still wanting what you want. You feel a little like Jack, holding the rope of your one dependable cow, standing at the crossroads:
Do you risk it all for the magic beans?
Or do you stay grounded in what you know will feed you?

You run your hands over the bills stacked on the counter and battle the voices in your head — the ones that say you should be further along by now, the ones that whisper that wanting more is foolish. You hang onto the threads of social media threads, wanting to believe the salvation they offer:

Leap and the net will appear.
Manifest your abundance.
Believe in yourself and anything is possible.

You don’t want to let your dreams die. You don't want to become someone who gave up too soon.

But unless you were born with a trust fund or a winning lottery ticket, the stakes are real:
rent still needs to be paid, groceries still need to be bought, and the margin for error feels painfully thin.

The self-empowerment gurus don’t honor that reality, it doesn’t sell well after all. Reality is so inconvenient compared to gilded promises:

Life is short.
Believe in yourself.
Leap and the net will appear.
Love yourself enough and anything is possible.

It’s an old revivalist tune, just dressed up in modern branding — promising that if you just believe hard enough, pray the right way, or "raise your vibration," miracles will follow. (Can I get an Amen?)

The problem isn't hope. The problem is what happens when hope gets twisted into a weapon. When paying rent becomes not just a practical necessity, but a supposed spiritual failure. When you start wondering if you’re broke because you’re broken. When you start asking yourself: Is my vibration too low to keep the lights on?

Nobody tells you there's a difference between the fear that tries to shrink you — and the fear that tries to protect you.

One is the voice of self-doubt: “You’re not good enough.”
“You’ll never make it.”
“Who do you think you are?”

The other is the voice of sober seeing: “Rent is due.”
“This investment might not pay off.”
“Dreams need scaffolding, not just stardust.”

Both kinds of fear feel the same inside: tight, anxious, urgent. That’s what makes it so confusing. We’re taught that all fear is the enemy — but some fear is just reality tapping you on the shoulder, asking to be respected.

It’s easy to get tangled — to wonder if you're clinging to fear, or if you're wisely holding onto the cow that feeds you, instead of trading it away for a handful of magic beans.

Every dream has a price. But not every price is worth paying.

That's the dilemma nobody warns you about: How do you keep faith in possibilities without losing your grip on the ground beneath your feet? How do you believe in magic without selling the very things that keep you alive?

And this is exactly where so many empowerment gurus hoodwink you — because they don't differentiate between the two.
To them, all hesitation is weakness.
All discernment is "fear mindset."
And if you pause to weigh reality against the dream, you're not "trusting the universe enough."

Instead of honoring the hard, wise fears that keep you grounded, they shame you for not leaping blindly.

And yet, if you spend enough time in the online spaces where dreams gather — on Substack, on Instagram, in the cozy enclaves of creative courses — you’ll find no shortage of people ready to sell you a $10,000 course promising the secret to "unlocking your abundance" or "scaling your passion."

There’s no shortage of "experts" ready to tell you that if you just believe in yourself a little harder, you too can write your bestseller, build your brand, live your dream life — conveniently for the price of their program.

And if it doesn't work?
Well, maybe you just didn't want it badly enough.
Maybe you didn't visualize hard enough.
Maybe — the cruelest cut of all — you didn't "love yourself" enough.

I wrestled with this recently when deciding whether to pour more money into self-publishing my book. Not because I didn’t believe in the work. I do. Not because I was paralyzed by fear. I wasn’t.

But because I live in a real world, governed by real structures, where nonfiction books — even excellent ones — rarely turn a profit without massive marketing engines behind them. Where spending thousands to "leap" without a plan could mean sacrificing hard-earned stability.

This wasn’t cowardice.
It was context.
It was sobriety.
It was wisdom with a bank account.

Here’s what the empowerment gurus won’t tell you, but I will:

It’s not weakness to honor your limits. It’s not fear to respect the reality you’re standing in.

True self-love isn’t measured by how recklessly you can leap. It’s measured by how bravely you can hold your dreams — and your constraints — in the same tender, steady hands.

True self-love is measured by how bravely you can hold your dreams — and your constraints — in the same tender, steady hands.

Because being true to yourself doesn’t always mean choosing magic over the cow. It means believing in yourself enough to honor the need for both. It means knowing that resilience requires time — and time requires resources. Even magic beans need soil to grow in. Even dreams need tending, patience, and shelter while they take root.

Real self-love isn’t betting everything on the next miracle.
It’s building a life where miracles have a place to land.