Opportunities of People are Limited-Daily Meditation 4.21.23
Today’s quotation:
The opportunities of people are limited only by their imagination. But so few have an imagination that there are ten thousand fiddlers to one composer.-Charles F. Kettering
Today’s Meditation:
Why do we so often stifle our own imagination? Is it because we work at jobs that expect us to do the same things repeatedly in the same ways? Is it because we’re afraid of being mocked when we do something in ways that are different than other people’s ways? Is it because when we did something different in the past, we failed and were criticized for our failure, and we don’t want to face failure or criticism again?
No matter the reason, it’s essential to remember that we have imagination, and ours is unique to us, not found in precisely the same way in any other person on the planet. We have fantastic potential, but sometimes we must be creative to realize that potential. Many of our decisions are made to keep ourselves “safe,” while the truth is that our safety may be our downfall. The world needs many more composers if we don’t want to listen to the same songs repeatedly, but not enough people are willing to compose.
We can use our imaginations to keep ourselves vital and alive. We can use them to create new things or add to existing ones. Somebody in the past imagined the Internet, cars, airplanes, heart transplants, and people walking on the moon, and those things have come to pass. Just imagine how many more beautiful things could come to be if more people could look into the immaterial and see things that don’t yet exist but could.
Suppose we’re going to stay vital and fresh. In that case, we’re going to have to use our imaginations to find ways to do so–and in doing so, we can make some pretty unique contributions in our own small ways to the world around us, but only if we use the precious gift of imagination with which we were gifted.
Questions to consider:
What kinds of things do you think could exist now but don’t? Why don’t they?
How might using your imagination help you to stay vital and fresh as the years go by?
What might you be able to contribute to your own corner of the world if you were to use your imagination more?
For further thought:
As the imagination is set to look into the invisible and immaterial, it seems to attract something of their vitality. Though it can give nothing to the body to redeem it from years, it can give the soul that freshness of youth in old age which is even more beautiful than youth in the young.-Henry Ward Beecher
Life Thoughts
