When I was a kid, caught staring off into space instead of paying attention to my teachers, I was scolded for daydreaming. If I was bored and complained to my mother she would say, “go out and play, use your imagination.” Although in my house if you said you were bored you could end up vacuuming so I was careful about complaining of boredom within earshot of my mom.
So off I would go to create a world arranged exclusively for me, using my day dreams and imagination. I would dance, tell jokes, sing, explore, fall, get up, challenge myself to jump new hurdles, and flit about here and there. I was content with my own company, most of the time, and I loved imagining all the possibilities of my grown-up life. What would I be when I grew up? Where would I live? What would I do?
Somewhere along the way I learned that daydreaming was a “luxury,” a waste of “productive time,” that “real life” required me to be “practical” and “realistic.” I gave up daydreaming and began to focus on more “concrete plans,” besides who daydreams their life into fruition? I would need a plan for my life and I would have to execute it with precision not fanciful daydreams.
As I reconnected with my soul, I realized that my daydreams may have been accurate all along. I found that I can use my daydreams and imagination to create my life, find my purpose, do the things I love, and still be a help and of service to others. If my life is a product of my thoughts and actions so far then surely I can expand those thoughts to include my daydreams.
I admit it wasn’t easy at the start, my imagination had become limited with little to no use. So I watched my sons and they let me play with them, (with imaginary but strict instructions, I might add). We played Star Wars, used light sabers and pretended we were Luke Skywalker, and Darth Vader, (although try to explain to little ones about the first three Star Wars movies and how the new Star Wars movies are prequels… but I digress). We played super heroes, bad guys, good guys, and as we laid, exhausted on the beach and daydreamed about what they wanted to be when they grew up; baseball player and an artist/chef, respectively, this time I daydreamed right along with them, my imagination had returned and I could see a wonderful future mapped out through my daydreams.
I’m still learning to live my life without mental restrictions and embracing my penchant for staring out the window and daydreaming about what comes next? Now that I found my imagination, the sky’s the limit and the possibilities are endless and as the song goes, “If I can see, then I can do it, if I just believe, there’s nothing to it, I believe I can fly.”
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