I maintain that your life’s single, biggest competitive advantage is your imagination.
Not your special skills, competencies and / or (fields or areas of) knowledge.
Not your resources, be they tangible or intangible.
No, it’s none of these things.
Your true edge lies rather in your ability to translate all this unique capacity of yours into something meaningful, complete and useful for you and, very importantly, for the world you live in.
And this key, catalytic ability of yours directly relates to your imagination.
You see – and I truly believe you will agree with me – all your skills and resources mean nothing when seen in isolation, that is only as your – unavoidably static – capability reservoir.
This is your “fuel”, so to say; but in order for your fuel to be converted into kinetic energy or motion – if you allow me to use the machine analogy – you need a relevant mechanism in place.
This mechanism is, again, none other than your imagination.
Here, please note that I am referring to the most literal meaning of the word “imagination”.
Image – I – nation.
That is, the production of images on your mind’s screen, corresponding to specific things or situations you want to realize.
For example:
Let’s say your objective is to travel to a certain, faraway and exotic – at least from your perspective – destination.
I firmly maintain that the best way to start in your pursue of this objective is… from the end!
What does this mean?
Begin from picturing yourself being in your destination of interest, enjoying whatever it is you expect to enjoy most once you would find yourself there.
Now, please pay attention because this is important:
You must form a mental image of this particular experience and actually see, by means of your – inner, mental, virtual – eyes, yourself being there and doing (or indulging in) whatever it is you would like to do (or indulge in).
And, please note, it is also vital that this image on the screen of your mind is as vivid, detailed, colorful and rich as possible…!
After that, whether you are aware of it or not, you have set in motion an inner mechanism that will guide you to do whatever you need to do in order to make this product of your image-I-nation, this “humble” mental image, actually become true.
So long, of course, as you keep your eyes open to the cues and prompts that it will serve you.
And this mechanism will not limit its activity to that – it will also make sure that the necessary external environment opportunities to achieve your goal your way shall come.
And that they shall do so at the right point in time.
And often such opportunities will arise through some rather miraculous “coincidences” or – to use the term I personally prefer, one coined by none other than the illustrious father of analytical psychology, Carl Jung – synchronicities.
Do you find this hard to believe?
You shouldn’t really, because this is how your imagination is designed to work.
Your imagination is THE tool to facilitate your goal-making, to make the objectives – ANY objectives – you set in the course of your lifetime as specific and as achievable as possible.
And in the above sentence lies a big key and a big trap.
On one hand, your imagination is the number one factor to set you on the path – the quickest and most optimal, in fact – towards the achievement of your goals.
Any goal you could fathom? Well, almost any goal.
Almost, for two reasons:
1. Practically, there are so many things you can do in your lifetime (even though, your capacity as a human being in this field – as well as any other field, really – is SIGNIFICANTLY higher than what you – have been taught to – believe).
2. Your imagination cannot support you in pursuing any purely ego-driven goals.
If you choose to employ it to serve such a goal, it will either fail you miserably or – worse – it will enable you to attain it, but ALWAYS with a much bigger and painful price to follow a bit later on.
A price to be paid by you alone, of course, which, on the bright side (at least, there’s always one…!) may serve as a big lesson for you, one you were in desperate need of.
Believe me, I am speaking here from my own – initially painful, then later on transformative – experience…
Now, please bear with me, as I submit it will be worth your while to do the effort to understand something crucial:
This mechanism works the way I just described not because it is subject to “moral” standards of what is “good” and what is “bad”.
Good (ha, ha!) Lord, no!!!
Sure, up to a certain point and within the realm of human society – the state of which always reflects humanity’s evolutionary stage at a given point in time – the notion of morality and the various expressions it can assume may often prove to be meaningful and useful.
(Always, judging by the outcome, of course; by how things actually turned out as a result of the application of certain moral standards).
However, when we look at things from the spiritual, cosmic or universal perspective – as I am generally attempting to do in this series of posts – it always boils down to what fundamentally works and what doesn’t and how to use what works.
(And, if I am honest, much less to why things work as they do.
Think of it this way: you don’t need to understand the principles of electricity to actually enjoy the – literally enlightening – benefits that turning a measly switch on brings you, do you?).
And to act egoistically – simply translated: as if you were separated from the rest of the Universe – never really works in the long run, and, moreover, always backfires – oftentimes ruthlessly so.
At the end of the day, dear friend and reader, this is because, essentially, you and the Universe form one, inseparable unified field of constantly interacting forces.
In other words, anything you do eventually has an impact on everything else in the world, and anything that happens anywhere else in the world eventually has an impact on you.
This, one needs to realize, is a universal Truth.
Where then does this Truth – and, in general, all the things we touched upon here – lead us in our understanding of today’s topic (imagination) and, in particular, of what would be the best way to use it?
I would say it leads us to the following advice:
Use your imagination as the triggering mechanism to pursue any goal that motivates you and makes your heart sing, by putting emphasis on its literal, visual, literal image making side.
Yet, at the same time, be very attentive as to not wish for anything that YOU KNOW would harm the world around you.
Starting from avoiding goals that you are very much aware that your attaining them would cause unprovoked, uncalled for and unnecessary suffering to any of your fellow human beings.
In the end, the more universal and integrated the goal you set out to imagine, the higher the benefits for everyone, including of course you.
Here’s a literal example of maximizing the power of imagination.
Do I hear you say that this a utopia never to be realized?
Well, here, it helps to remember that from a cosmic point of view, 50, or so, years of human life (the time that has transpired since this song was written) is less than a fraction of a nanosecond…
Until next time…
I invite you to exercise the power of your imagination and start enjoying its abundant fruits,
PS: By the way, if you need a scientific backbone for all my claims above (it is always wise to doubt and cross-check things that seem to you odd, unconventional or that you generally feel unsure about), you should read this book.
It may be a bit old, but I guarantee you that it can transform you in ways very few books could…