Imagining Things

I will never forget the first night that I had to stay in my house alone. I went through my normal routine after work and everything was fine. Well, night time came and that was a totally different story! I started hearing so many noises that I had never heard before to the point that I shut and locked the bedroom door. The steps were creaking! Seemed like the walls were popping! It was terrible! I put the phone right beside me in the bed just in case I needed to go hide in the closet and whisper to the police. I imagined so many different scenarios that I had worn myself out so badly that I was exhausted when I woke up the next morning. It was the craziest thing and trust me when I say---I had a good laugh about it later!

With so many people being kidnapped or even worse--I did have a valid reason to think the way that I did but it also shows how quickly we are affected by what we can't yet see. When I was home alone, I didn't see anything but I was already prepared. I wasn't just prepared externally with my phone by my side, but my body internally had already orchestrated a range of functions that created a sense of extra energy or adrenaline if needed. I was PREPARED physically and emotionally for what I couldn't see.

Often times, our aspirations and dreams have not manifested so we imagine what could be. We think about the "what if's" and then we forget about them.

Why is it so much easier to forget or ignore a dream than it is to remember the things that scare us? Fear can drive us to preparation but purpose and dreams lead us to dead ends? Why are we so fearful of the things that can make us happy? These are questions that I don't have the answers to but I wish I did.

Having an imagination isn't a bad thing! Creativity is found in imagination. For anything to exist, it first had to be an idea and an idea is simply a concept or thought of something that could possibly be. Just think about when you see children playing--they have the most fun imagining that they are a super hero or a popular cartoon character and the best part about it is--they get their friends involved imagining things too! There's a lesson in that alone but that's for another day!

Of course I am not telling you to walk around in a state of paranoia. I am simply asking you to choose to bring forth the ideas that you once imagined, again. Your dreams and aspirations don't have to be a dead end for you. Now, realistically there are some things that we may want to do that may not align with the purpose for our lives. Simply put for me, I believe in aligning to the will of God for my life which is a process--a destination that I'm still trying to reach daily. However, that may not be your belief and that is definitely your choice but I think that we can agree on this…everyday you have a choice to make. You can choose to live with hope or you can choose to be hopeless.

I've been doing a lot of reflecting lately. Thinking on what I still have left to do, I often start planning for the year ahead around this time so that I at least have a vision and strategy for where I'm headed in the new year. Being almost at the end of another year, some of you may feel like nothing has changed or things have become worse than when the year started. Perhaps, you stopped imagining things because you didn't know where to start or maybe finances have played a major role in stifling your creativity--I get it! But while you wait, you can still prepare. You never know when the idea you prepared for will present itself as a real opportunity.

If you're still on the fence about imagining things…The founder of Disney, Walt Disney, once said this about the infamous Disneyland, "Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world." Today, the company Disney is worth $130 billion (Business Insider, 2019) and it was founded upon the use of people's imagination.

It's time to start putting that great imagination of yours to work!

Giving you the ladder :)

Rosalind