Imagination

I woke up this morning dreading the day ahead. I'd overslept so I felt lazy and tired at the same time. It was raining and I was supposed to go on a picnic later. I had to get a scholarship application done in the next five hours or I'd owe my mom $100. I wanted to call my friend Sarah to share my angst, but then realized she's in Paris.

Then I found a scholarship to apply for, which made my day a little better. I spent the next hour and a half writing a 600-word essay about what superpower I would like to have. Being a closet X-Men fan since I was a kid, this was a less-than-horrible topic for me. By the time I finished the essay, I was feeling much better and my outlook on my day was bright (despite the overcast skies outside my computer room window).

So, why am I telling you this? Why should you care? What profound, or not so profound, point is there in this seemingly mundane bit of minutia about my seemingly mundane morning? Imagination. I woke up seeing the structured deadlines and plans of my day and was depressed, then spent an hour letting my imagination bend the rules and explore possibilities and felt 110% better.

People spend so much time pondering happiness in their lives. Will I be happier if I buy this car, look this way, act this way, go to this place, meet this person, or lose this much weight? The real question is, will I be happier if I think this way? Your thought patterns define your outlook on life. Boring thought patterns, boring life. Interesting thought patterns, interesting life.

Therefore, my fundamental thought for the day is this: You can't limit your mind without limiting yourself. Don't suppress your imagination. People say that it is our intelligence that sets us apart from baser animals, but is that really true? A squirrel may wake up in the morning and know instinctively that it must gather food today to store away for winter. A man may wake up today and know instinctively that he must go to work or he will be fired. But does the squirrel sit back for a moment and think about all the things he could do instead of gather food or dream up ways to get his work done so that he can move on to things he finds more interesting? No. But the man does. But only if he lets himself. Being creative doesn't preclude being responsible. Don't let being responsible preclude being creative.