Garret Gillespie

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Ever known one of those people that seem to know exactly when they will be “old?”

They’re the ones who call you “kid” even though they’re actually maybe one year older than you. Every sentence starts with, “when you get to be my age,” or “when you’re as old as I am.”

Drives me nuts.

I had a dream last night obviously inspired by my feelings on this subject.

In my dream I was interacting with an elderly man that was out-performing me in everything we were working on. He was more active, stronger; he had greater stamina, and a better attitude as we worked. At one point my exasperation got the better of me and I finally said, “Man! How do you do it?” He looked amused by my frustration and asked, “Do what?” I replied, “Well, you’re stronger than me, you’ve got more stamina than me, your attitude is better than mine…how do you do it at your age?” At this, he got a quizzical look on his face and asked, “What d’ya mean my age?”

I was suddenly embarrassed and, as gently as I could, said, “Well…you’re so…old.”

At this his eyebrows went way up, a grin crossed his face and he said, “I am?”

Then he got a thoughtful expression on his face and went on to say, “Well, now that you mention it, I suppose I am quite a bit old-er than you are, but I’ve never thought of myself as old. I mean what is old anyway? I guess I never took the time to decide what old would be for me, so I’ve never gotten there. Granted living day-to-day requires quite a bit more maintenance now than it did 20 or 30 years ago but, old? I wouldn’t recognize it if I saw it.”

He went on to say something that struck me as odd at the time. He said, “I walk on the heads of people my age.”

What the…?

Then I woke up.

Now the old age stuff was clear enough but, regarding the “walking on the heads” comment…

That one had me scratching my head when I woke up, but a long time ago Cori and I discovered dream dictionaries. We’ve researched the symbolism of our dreams for years. You have to take some of the information provided by dream researchers with a grain of salt (they can get a little…mystical…if you know what I mean). But we’ve found some of the symbolism fascinating.

Like this latest dream for instance. The elderly gentleman in my dream said he “walks on the heads of people his age,” and when he said it my view was as though I was looking up at him as he did it. Where the heck did my subconscious mind get that?

Well…

It sounds bad at first but dream dictionaries describe seeing a head in a dream as a possible representation of accomplishments, self-image, and perception of the world. It can also be a metaphor to indicate that you are “ahead” in some situation or that you need to get ahead. Well that would sure fit in my current situation; I’m working like the devil to get ahead.

I’m feeling the years because Cori and I are empty nesters for the first time in our lives and though that threatens to make us think we should be old, we don’t feel it. Neither of us ever decided when old would be. We actually feel stronger and more confident every day. We have no idea how long that’s going to last but we have no intention of picking some distant date or age when we’ll quit growing and learning.

Old.

What is it to you?

Do you spend your time and energy waiting for it? Have you found yourself already there even though there’s a part of you that believes you should have more to live for?

There are many that are slowed by physical or emotional infirmities as the years pass and their bodies’ age. But, before we resign ourselves to an inevitable degradation of our usefulness and virility, it’s important to keep in mind that there are just as many slowed by infirmities in their youth.

The truth is, what slows us in life has little to do with age, but more to do with activity or inactivity.

If you awaken each day worrying what new overwhelming obstacle time will present you, I want you to stop. Spend today focused on developing the strengths and talents you have now, because the best way to insure you have them tomorrow is to use them today.

“One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living.  We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon – instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today.”  -Dale Carnegie

I woke up from an incredible dream this morning. As is the case with most of my dreams, the overall course of it was scattered and filled with me searching around for something and never being able to find it, but right at the end, just before I woke up I had the coolest experience.

I found myself sitting in a school classroom; one of those old elementary school classrooms with the desks that aren’t made to fit adults. I was in the midst of a big gathering of people. Adults and children that my mind suddenly decided were Native American. There were no feathered headdresses or drums or even very traditional clothing, it just suddenly made sense that they were Native American. I realized I was a guest at a ceremony culminating several days of celebration for the passing of three boys from youth to manhood. There was no fanfare, just the gathering and the final act of the celebration. As I watched, a young tribal leader stood in front of the classroom and described that he would now give the young men a container into which they would place symbols of the strengths they felt they could give to the tribe now that they were adults. After they placed their symbols into the container or pouch, they were to pass it to the next until all three had placed their symbols into the pouch and the last one would give it back to the leader. The first youth acted embarrassed and only put one symbol into the pouch before passing it on to the next. The next two boys were larger, stronger, and more confident than the first and they placed several items into the pouch before passing it back to the leader.

When the leader received the pouch he moved back to the front of the group and proceeded to remove the symbols from the pouch. Somehow he was able to identify who put what symbols in the pouch and began describing what each symbol represented. As he began, most of the symbols he pulled from the pouch belonged to the second and third boys, given the fact that they had put so many in compared to the first boy. The first symbol the leader pulled from the pouch represented physical strength and had been placed in the pouch by the third and largest of the boys. The boy was pleased with the leader’s description of the power the symbol represented and he received several congratulatory slaps on the back from friends and family, but the congratulations and laughter died quickly as the leader finished his description of the symbolism and called for another member of the tribe join him at the front of the room. A giant of a man with a grave expression on his face lumbered to the front of the room and turned to face the group. The room got immediately quiet and the leader reached into the pouch again and removed a second symbol. This symbol had been placed into the pouch by the second boy and represented speed. There were more congratulations for the second boy albeit more subdued than the first, and, not surprisingly, when the leader finished his description of the symbolism he called another member of the tribe forward. This time a slight, sinewy man stepped with long strides to the front of the group and with the same grave expression turned to face the group. This same process continued as the leader slowly emptied the pouch of the symbols that had been placed in it. Each symbol representing a strength that each boy felt confident he possessed above any other; wisdom, faith, kindness, etc. each one being followed by the leader calling forward a member of the tribe that inarguably possessed a greater amount of that quality or strength.

The last symbol pulled from the pouch finally belonged to the first young man that had acted so shy about what his contribution to the tribe would be. This final symbol, the leader described, represented the ability to learn. As the leader finished, the group waited for him to call forward another member of the tribe, but he just finished and was quiet.

After a moment’s pause, the leader began to explain that for all of the preceding gifts, strengths or qualities, there could be someone found that exceeded what you possessed at any point in your life. But there was none among them that could be called forward as the greatest learner. He said the greatest strength anyone could offer their tribe is a willingness to be teachable; the humility to believe you can always learn something or be strengthened by those around you.

I woke up right after that and pondered what I had seen for most of the day. It is a powerful reminder that the acknowledgement that you possess weaknesses can be considered strength. And not just any strength, but the greatest strength you can offer to those around you.

It reminds me of the old proverb about the reason we were given two ears and only one mouth, so we would listen twice as much as we speak. It’s also important to remember that the least among us can be, and often is, the greatest among us.

I recently finished reading Sphere by Michael Crichton. It’s an excellent story by a master storyteller. And while I’ve read many of his books — in fact I’ve read about a dozen recently — this one struck me particularly powerfully. Perhaps it’s our current situation, and the efforts I’m making to stay positive in the midst of these challenges, that made this particular work hit me so strongly. To say the least our situation is more difficult than it has ever been physically and emotionally. And if there has ever been a time in my life for creativity in exploring ways to lift us out of difficulty, this is it. In fact, I’ve come to that point where it’s often difficult to get up in the morning; and when I finally drag myself out of bed, the day is spent feeling as though I’m slogging through knee deep mud. In times like these, it’s imperative to reach deep inside and find dreams that have lain dormant, mine those hopes and wishes, and refine them into goals that can be used to fire the imagination and generate the energy to keep moving.

It is the firing of imagination that caused the plot line Mr. Crichton wrote into Sphere to hit me so strongly. At one point, the main character, Norman Johnson, finds himself communicating with what he perceives to be an alien intelligence. The dialogue that ensues includes an explanation by the alien intended to help Norman understand the situation that has placed the main characters in peril.

“On your planet you have an animal called a bear. It is a large animal, sometimes larger than you, and it is clever and has ingenuity, and it has a brain as large as yours. But the bear differs from you in one important way. It cannot perform the activity you call imagining. It cannot make mental images of how reality might be. It cannot envision what you call the past and what you call the future. This special ability of imagination is what has made your species as great as it is. Nothing else. It is not your ape-nature, not your tool-using nature, not language or your violence or your caring for young or your social groupings. It is none of these things, which are all found in other animals.”

“Your greatness lies in imagination. The ability to imagine is the largest part of what you call intelligence. You think the ability to imagine is merely a useful step on the way to solving a problem or making something happen. But imagining it is what makes it happen.”

“This is the gift of your species and this is the danger, because you do not choose to control your imaginings. You imagine wonderful things and you imagine terrible things, and you take no responsibility for the choice. You say you have inside you both the power of good and the power of evil, the angel and the devil, but in truth you have just one thing inside you—the ability to imagine.”

Imagination. It’s our imagination that makes us great. It can also be our imagination that can keep us imprisoned within our own fears and doubts. It can be the most powerful tool we possess in our pursuit for personal success, or it can be a ponderous obstacle in our way. Our imagination, compared to other talents and abilities that comprise who we are and what our potential is, is somewhat unique. While many of the individual characteristics that influence the success we achieve in life are genetic and thus unalterable (physical size, beauty, race, gender, etc.), we are all born with the ability to imagine anything we desire in the world around us. But while we may all be born with the same capability to imagine how we would like our environment to be, very early in our lives the environment itself begins to exert its influence over our imagination. It truly is one of life’s injustices. We’re born with an ability to imagine the world the way we’d like it to be — and the confidence to manifest the things we imagine — but before we possess the maturity to appreciate and nurture this power within us, the very world we could have the power to influence, influences us. Imagination can experience healthy development or stifling neglect in one’s youth. And it is at this early stage that precedents are set which will characterize whether imagination will be a tool used to lift one to great heights of personal success and fulfillment, or whether it will be a shackle and chain restraining the individual from progressing.

For most of my life, my imagination worked against me. I had difficulties perceiving how my imagination and I could work together. I spent years listening to my imagination as though it was a separate entity from me, and I allowed it to grow and evolve without control or guidance. The dialogue Mr. Crichton wrote into Sphere is another piece of the puzzle I’ve been assembling in my mind for the last several years. In the dialogue, he writes that we, as humans, think the ability to imagine is a useful step in solving a problem or making something happen, but he goes on to posit that it is our imagination that actually makes it happen. For many, the situation is even worse. Not only do we lack the understanding to use our imaginations to make things happen, but we even struggle in our efforts to use our imagination as a tool toward successful problem solving. On the contrary, more often than not, our rogue imaginations become a hindrance to any attempts at problem solving and the primary force in manifesting our doubts and fears.

If we are to achieve higher levels of personal success in our lives, it is imperative that our first step be to take control of our imagination. If we strip down all the principles, affirmations, mantras, and advice being distributed by the myriad authors, teachers, and speakers of the self-help community to their very simplest form, taking control of one’s imagination is primary. Lacking the ability to imagine ourselves successful in any endeavor renders any amount of study, work, goal setting, or recitations moot. Instead, we find ourselves pushed and pulled in myriad directions and making no progress toward harnessing the power of imagination. And each additional success tool adds another fiber to the confusing web we’ve woven. On the other hand, if we embrace the reality that we control our imagination, and then develop the skills and confidence necessary to harness that imagination and put it to work for us, then we begin to master self-discipline in its purest and simplest form. Only then can we apply success principles with focus, and make progress toward achieving a level of success never imagined—because we couldn’t.

You can say what you want about Fred Rogers, but if there was ever an individual that embraced the importance of the human imagination, it was Mr. Rogers. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the most important service that can be rendered in this world is the nurture of the childhood imagination. Do you remember yours? Can you dig deep into your mind and remember that time when there were no constraints on what you could imagine yourself doing; before you established your list of all the things you can’t do and all the reasons why you can’t do them? As a child, I can remember sitting transfixed as Trolley rolled through his tunnel into the world of make believe where anything could happen, and every episode was written to validate and reinforce my belief that I could make the world anything I wanted it to be. But of course time passed and I grew too cool for Mr. Rogers and all his neighborhood friends.

My study into the secrets of success from authors like Jack Canfield, Stephen R. Covey, Jim Loehr, Barbara Sher, Victor Frankl and many more, coupled with this new enlightenment from Mr. Crichton, has inspired me to strive for a return to the imagination I had before my heart and mind became shuttered by fear and doubt. Everything that happens, happens first in the mind of an individual. Every successful athletic competitor succeeded first in his or her imagination. Every invention created to improve the quality of our lives existed first in the imagination of the inventor. And any progress I make in this life must live first in my imagination. I’m ready. Are you?

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you’ve imagined. “ —Henry David Thoreau