It is Right on the Other Side

For week two in our fifty week calligraphy challenge, we were given the word imagination. Anything was fair game. I thought about that word for a long time and had grand ideas of pictorial, imaginative elements – obviously that is not what I produced. My ideas went way beyond my illustrative skills, so I went to bed. I woke up with the idea of three “I”s . The word imagination has three i’s in it, so I did a play on the word sharing only one i. The quote reads as follows:

The quantity of civilization is measured by the quality of imagination.

-Victor Hugo 1885

Most of us can crank out our work, whatever it is. We have gained experience and expertise enough to be able to do a majority of our work without thinking. The good news about this is that we have the ability to take on and do more work. The bad news about this is that it may mean we are operating on autopilot most of the time. We are not running at full capacity, either in the quantity of work we do or the quality. When we dare to engage our imagination we raise our game beyond that everyday, get it done level.

Quality increases exponentially when we engage imagination. It may take us a bit longer to get started, to work out the new kinks, new ideas, different way of doing things. In the end, our output will be better, stronger, more effective and most likely something we are more excited about doing again and again. Our imagination brings creativity, joy, excitement and even helps a once mundane task become more interesting and new. Imagination takes time, the ability to fail, fix and try again. And it requires that we stop and think differently than we did before.

Imagine the problems that could be solved in this world if we each engaged our imagination and bit more and left our mundane work habits behind. What we have accepted as part of life might change drastically, if we would only change the way we think by being more imaginative. Let me encourage you to do something that makes you think outside of the current box in which you live. Something, anything, get uncomfortable and get creative. A better way of living is right on the other side of how you currently think.