where did all the imagination go...

Our minds are amazing things. They help us make important decisions every day, from calculating how to best spend our time to getting us dressed and keeping us productive. Always analyzing, always charting a course forward for us based on what we set our intentions to.

But the one area where the mind tends to fall short as we get older [and have to “adult”] is imagination. What the hell happens to our boundless imagination & creativity that we had when we were kids?! A stick, a ball, pretty much anything lying around and we’d cook up a game that would keep us occupied for hours. Dreaming crazy ideas up all day while we sat in class- the possibilities were endless.

Something weird happens when we grow up. First come the degrees [typically]. Highschool, then college. Pick a good major, network, get internships, get a big boy/girl job, and we’re off to the races! Then comes the real world. My oh my- what a crazy change the real world is from the structured, disciplined environment of taking classes, studying & getting those A’s and B’s.

Suddenly bills and responsibilities and a full calendar equals daily life. A system of sorts. There’s no time for dreams and games when there’s a retirement to save for, a ladder to climb, a promotion to target, a boss to impress. Our imaginations tend to collapse into this continuous adult style suspended state like the movie Get Out—we can’t even fathom some of the things we can do accomplish if we set our minds to it-even though this is when we have more resources than our younger selves could ever dream of!

Are our creative minds atrophying because we’re not flexing our imagination muscle and putting it to use, like a boxer who loses a few steps because he hasn’t trained lately? I’d argue yes.

And so the limits on our imagination continue to grow day by day until our earlier dreams are like a faint ray of sunshine dwindling away on a Winter day…but it doesn’t have to be that way! We can push back and light that creative flame again.

How? Action. By making time and not budging on that things that make you feel most alive. Working on the things we’ve dreamed up and the life you truly want to have. Saying “no” to make time for “yes” to the activities that help you flex that imaginative muscle.

The interesting thing is that the more you work on those things the stronger the creative mind gets. Ideas will pop out of nowhere- and action is the key to it all.

Easier said than done. But what’s the alternative?