Bringing Balance to Our Imaginations
What do you think about when your mind wanders? Have you ever thought about why your mind wanders to those places?
I'm often amazed at my children's imaginations. My daughter Lauren recently wrote and illustrated two books on funny faces, creating faces from everyday objects with great detail and variety. My oldest daughter took a cue from Lauren and made a story line for similar characters. My youngest daughter is the storyteller of the family. Her imagination takes her stories to fantastic places and involves her characters in lively situations. My son's imagination finds release in physical creativity. Ah, the joys of boys! Imaginations are wonderful - they bring us some very fine entertainment.
As we age, our imaginations are often influenced more by our surroundings than by any innate sense of creativity. The purity of our imaginations is replaced by the familiar saying, "Garbage in, garbage out." I read a piece on pornography that spoke of how those images are burned into the memories of its viewers. I notice a similar phenomenon occurs after I view shows with foul language. Even into the next day those curse words will immediately come to mind if I get aggravated. Our minds gravitate to what our eyes have seen and what our ears have heard.
Today we are bombarded with news of our flailing economy. It is easy for our minds to wander to a place of insecurity, poverty, and homelessness. If we aren't careful our imaginations can lead us into a state of depression. Certainly, we need to be realistic and responsible with our finances. But we also need to be realistic and responsible with how we invest our time: what we listen to and what we watch. This is true for all aspects of our life: finances, job, marriage, parenting, relationships, fashion and hobbies.
Bring balance to what you allow your senses to be exposed to and you will bring balance to your imagination.
Change your thoughts and change your world.
-Norman Vincent Peale