Imagination: Blessing or Curse?

Your imagination is such a gift. Besides your thumbs, it’s what separates you from every other species on this planet. Every other living animal is hard-wired to react to their environment. You, however, have the ability to create your environment and it all starts with your imagination. What you dream about, desire, and think about eventually becomes your reality.

For many, the word imagination is centered around children. “Oh, he has such a vivid imagination!” or “What do you mean you’re bored? You have a room full of toys, now go and use your imagination and have some fun!”. But then something funny happens. As you grew up, the joy of imagining morphed into daydreaming, which became fantasizing and matured into wishful thinking. How many times did you hear, “Get your head out of the clouds! You’re an adult now, you don’t have time to indulge in childlike activities.”?

I’m here to tell you that imagination isn’t something you should lose as you grow up, it’s something you should build as you grow up. Imagination creates potential, hope, passion, purpose, and drive. Imagination makes living fun. Using your imagination is something you should actively devote time to every day. Your imagination is one of the most potent tools you have to create the life you want. Starting your day imagining the potential the day holds is powerful because it creates expectation and your expectation drives your attitude, actions, and ultimately determines your results.

And like every other tool of power, it comes with a warning. What I’ve been talking about up to this point is using your gift to magnify the potential of your life. But this gift can become a curse when you use it to intensify your problems. You call this negative imagining worry and if you’re like most, you do this all the time. You take your problem and use your imagination to think of all the things that could go wrong. Instead of getting you to push forward and grow, this type of creative thinking causes you to stop dead in your tracks and do nothing. The funny thing about worry is many of the things you worry about don’t ever come to pass. Think of worry as interest paid on a debt you may never owe! As Corrie Ten Boom (a WWII hero you can read more about here) once said, “Worrying does not empty tomorrow of its troubles, it empties today of its strength.”

So stop worrying about what can wrong and get excited about what can go right. Use your imagination as it was meant to be used; as a tool to help you create the life that you’ve always wanted. When the people around you see how creative you are and how much fun you’re having, you’ll show them just how AMAZING you are!