My colleague and I were reminiscing today about the different made up games we used to play with our siblings and friends as children. Whether it was turning my sister's bunk bed into a ship or pretending my cousins' pool was a theme park or even creating an island paradise from my best friend's parent's driveway feature (which was a goldfish pond with a bridge and palm tree), we were always using our imagination to come up with games that would entertain us for hours. The above picture was drawn by my housemate's young daughter. This picture, if you look closely, actually tells an entire story about a dragon attacking a castle and the king and his men coming to rescue it... or something like that. They say these types of imaginative play are very important to a child's development in early years. Of course now my imagination is usually in the form of "when I buy a house its going to look something like this and I'll do this to it" or "when I have children we will play like this" or even "next year when I go to Europe I'm going to see this and we'll do that" etc... Even as adults we use our imagination all the time for so many different reasons. People use it as a therapeutic tool to relax or let go of certain stressors. Imagine what it would be like if we were unable to imagine anything... hang on... you literally can't! So I'm very thankful that our brains are hardwired this way. It may seem silly but I feel maybe we take this for granted. Imagination can be such a positive and powerful tool. It can inspire us, encourage us, make us happy, give us hope. To quote the famous John Legend song that's so full of this hope "Imagine all the people, living for today..." how great could this word be.
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