Garret Gillespie

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