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Imagination can open new doors for you

“How many people will there be on our spaceship?”Barry stopped and pondered the question for a few moments.“Seven,” he said at last and then went back to sketching the ship.

“I think the willfully unimaginative see more monsters; they are often more afraid.”

— J. K. Rowling,

British fantasy author

“How many people will there be on our spaceship?”

Barry stopped and pondered the question for a few moments.

“Seven,” he said at last and then went back to sketching the ship.

In junior high school, I became friends with a bright and imaginative kid by the name of Barry. He was the eldest son of a large and desperately poor family who lived in a small shack on a quarter section of land in a neighbouring county. To escape the harsh reality of his home life, Barry read every science fiction book he could find and dreamed of commanding a starship.

“I’m going to build a spaceship,” he told me one day. “Would you like to help me?”

For a kid who was painfully shy and hypersensitive, the idea of escaping from life was enticing. I asked him how he planned to do it. He told me to leave that to him so I did. We were both loners but existing on opposing swings of an emotional pendulum. While I was the quintessential wallflower – an introvert afraid of his own shadow, Barry was scrappy and outspoken.

During recess, we would sit in the library sketching designs for our spaceship. Looking back, our designs were hauntingly similar to the (yet to exist) NASA space shuttle. Barry said the best starships always had a command triad comprised of a bold and brash captain along with his logical and emotional counterparts. In addition to the bridge crew, the ship’s complement would include four other (yet to be selected) crew members – individuals responsible for engineering, navigation, security and whatever additional duties we would deem necessary.

The third member of the triad came in the form of a chunky, red-haired outcast by the name of Chester who giggled when we approached him and immediately accepted our invitation.

We called our project MFS-SEPS. It was Barry’s idea. The MFS came from the initial of each of our surnames and SEPS was an acronym for Space Exploration Project Swift.

So there we had it – the command crew of the MFS-SEPS: Barry, who wanted to be in command of his own destiny; Chester, who was just happy to have friends to hang with; and me, who desperately needed to feel wanted, worthwhile and to belong somewhere.

Imagination has the ability to carry us away from the reality of everyday life and deposit us in fictional situations where we can feel strong, resourceful – even loved. Children give free rein to their imaginations. Sometimes, for a child who is frightened, lonesome or in fierce opposition to life and the world into which he has been thrust, imagination can be deliverance.

In our imagination, we can travel instantly, free from the usual obstacles in our path. For many of us, this can provide temporary relief from stress, embarrassment, difficulties or painful circumstances. It may also provide us with a sense of calm, happiness and even hope. We can use our imaginations to escape reality or to create an entire new and better reality for ourselves.

From a problem-solving standpoint, imagination makes it possible for us to experience an entire world right there in our head. It can give us the ability to look at situations from different vantage points or enable us to mentally explore both the past and future. A beneficial skill when it comes to reassessing the past or devising effective, alternative strategies for the future.

All things – actions, objects and understandings spring to life in our imagination. Creative visualization has been used down through the ages to manifest everything from works of art to ways of governing. And it can be used to create the life, the love and the success we desire. Visualizing a positive or successful outcome and repeating this mental image often will draw us in the direction of our goals and desires of creating new, vast and fascinating opportunities.

Misuse of the imagination is responsible for much of the suffering, failures and unhappiness people experience. Many people use their imaginations to envision all the things they don’t want. They constantly see calamity and in turn, create and attract calamity.

Understanding how to use our imaginations correctly and putting this knowledge into practice for our own benefit and those of others can put us on the path to empowered living.

Over time, word of our space odyssey got around. We were teased mercilessly. Barry took the brunt of it. He repaid each barb with a barb and every shove with a shove. Chester decided it was better to be friendless than to be teased (even more than he had been) so claimed that he had only been playing along and really thought the whole idea was childish nonsense.

And from what were Barry and I trying to escape? Was it the bullies in our lives, responsibility, adulthood, childhood, the need to grow up and conform – the perceived unfairness of it all?

Sometime later, Barry ran away from home only to be found by his father about 30 kilometres away walking along the train tracks. Eventually, Barry quit school and joined the military.

As for me, I quietly clung to the dream of MFS-SEPS even when Barry (in an angry outburst) told me that it was a foolish, childish dream. I didn’t care. The dream sustained me during a time when I was especially burdened and I’ll never forget the hope it stirred within me.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge,” wrote Einstein. “For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”

Even today, when I look up into a clear night sky, I can imagine a shy boy standing proud on the bridge of a starship somewhere feeling free and worthwhile – belonging to the stars.

Murray Fuhrer is a local self-esteem expert and facilitator. His new book is entitled Extreme Esteem: The Four Factors. For more information on self-esteem, check the Extreme Esteem website at www.extremeesteem.ca.