The Power of Imagination
Imagination is one of our most precious faculties. In addition to “providing meaning to experience, understanding to knowledge, and playing a key role in the learning process” (Wikipedia), imagination gives us the faculty to see the world and ourselves beyond the present moment. Combined with the freedom of choice it makes us the master of our fate.
Imagination has been the seedling of all human progress but it’s also the motive power of our individual lives. The more we use it, combined with a burning desire for its actualization and a definite purpose, the greater our achievements will be.
With experience and intelligence, imagination becomes creativity (the ability to create new valuable things), which can then be transformed into all kinds of riches. It’s not an easy step, but we’re all capable of achieving it — unless we surrender to the manual.
Our obsession with creating maps and manuals for how to live our lives goes against the human nature, for there is no limit to what we can achieve and become. Maps, in this sense, are counter-productive because they set boundaries where none existed before. They help avoid the mental effort of finding a path but offer no surprise as to what the destination will be.
In the face of an infinite sea of choices, it’s natural to put blinders on, to ask for a map, to beg for instructions, or failing that, to do exactly what you did last time, even if it didn’t work. Seth Godin
Life offers an infinite sea of choices. In this frightening journey, imagination is our own personal navigation tool. It’s always with us but we must deliberately and repeatedly choose to use it.
Today’s world of factories has created countless manuals and mapped a vast number of paths which are followed by many. Our education system reinforces this by making us believe that the only way for us to succeed is to follow those paths and rules. They offer a quick and easy fix to a broader problem that’s the meaning of one’s life, but don’t come free of charge.
While following a map can offer a temporary remedy to some of our fears, it can only take us where someone else wishes for us to go, usually for his or her personal benefit. Moreover, if we aren’t prepared to work without a map and be wrong, we can’t let free of our creativity and achieve our full potential.
In contrast, following our imagination won’t give us the comfort of knowing what to do and where to go at any given moment, but its rewards are invaluable compared to the wages that we can expect by working at the office. Beyond success, it’ll bring us happiness and fulfillment, for we will be in charge of our own future.
Man’s only limitation, within reason, lies in his development and use of his imagination. Napoleon Hill
Within the laws of physics, the power of our imagination is simply limitless.