Reality or Fiction
Like lots of people, I love to read. I try my best to set aside some time every day to pick up some fiction and lose myself outside of my real world. I have paired my nightly meditation routine with reading directly after, and they really soften the time before I sleep to eliminate my need to worry. Worry strangles reality and seems to have a lock on that time right before sleep for a lot of people and I found it just got in the way of my actually falling asleep. I have learned that when something in the routine isn’t working, it can adjust to something new. Worry isn’t all bad and I do thank the part of my brain that likes to do it by sometimes giving it ten minutes to be as intense as possible since it is unlikely that the worst I can conceive of will occur. Free rein lets the possibilities go wild. When you can think the worst, everything else is easier.
Reality always hits a Wall
When reality gets to its destination, it tends to stop. If I can determine that an event has finally reached its endpoint, it becomes a known quantity. The opposite scenario would be a volcanic eruption. They seem to keep spewing from an unseen depth or stop and start over again. Avoid those at all costs. The real message I want to make is that reality has limits. Not always defined but certainly assured. That makes it possible to start to deal with. When the fallout from something bad starts to slow, it is possible to start breathing again. Up to that point, breathing responded by raggedly just doing its baseline job of providing some oxygen. The bulk of available energy was watching the reality of the event.
Imagined Reality
This is the in-between activity that starts to solve our real problems. Creating scenarios that might deal with the side effects of reality lets us reach into our minds and see if there are any easy answers. But the past is the past for a reason, and it isn’t the best place to look for a new answer. Looking backwards can cause unsteadiness and the reality is what requires a solution. But reality has a friend in imagination and doesn’t mind the help.
Imagination Advantage
The best part of imagination is that it has no limitations. Boundaries are what we use to control behavior. Imagination has no bounds. It is a spectacular advantage because it means that anything is possible. When real limitations are exhausted, pull out imagination. It is the very stuff that we use to entertain us, create our futures, support our dreams and fuel our hope when reality has come to visit. The power of our imaginations is underutilized because we tend to limit ourselves and reach for easy answers. But when needed and wanted, imagination can be called upon to widen our worlds.
Can you recapture the feeling of walking into an amusement park? Before you start anything brand new, do you stop to imagine what it will be like? Is it possible to use the imagination before reality occurs to prevent a disaster?
