Topic of the Day

A Healthy Dose of Unreality

Never underestimate the power of a good imagination. I realize that we must be grown up, but we don't have to numb and boring. We are encouraged from an early age to think big and use our imaginations to create things and take us places. Our parents want us to go outside or in our rooms and pretend something!! There's nothing to do, we say. Then pretend you're a horse or something, we were told.

Imagination will take you places. It turns your backyard into the African jungle, a tennis racket into a guitar, your bed into a roomy station wagon and your hallway into a runway. We laugh and play and pretend our mom's giant makeup kit is a super intelligent computer system. We don't need money or things to be happy, just our imaginations.

So, why is it when we get older we are told to put those imaginations away and focus, live in the real world. Stop living with your heads in the clouds, pay attention to school and work and so on. Your imagination is causing you nothing but trouble, they tell us.

Gee, which is it already?

Well, in my opinion, I think ceasing to use the imagination that gave us so much joy and entertainment as kids is a travesty! Why do we need to stop imagining things, playing make believe in our imagination? It's healthy. And it can still take us places. What's so wrong with imagining yourself as the first lady president, or imagining that your Oscar acceptance speech? Frankly, I often imagine how it might be if I suddenly became the criminal psychologist I wish I was.

I don't think we should be afraid of using our imaginations...we should be afraid of NOT using them.

Dream On,
Sissy