The reality of imagination

We spend most of our time responding to reality, yet spend very little time imagining different ones.

Maybe that's because imagination feels like a luxury. The word sounds fluffy. Frivolous. Unproductive.

But the reality of imagination is that it's hard work.

It demands things that have become increasingly scarce: time, space and attention. It asks us to sit with uncertainty rather than reach for the first available answer. To explore possibilities that don't or maybe won’t exist. To choose a future worth creating knowing we might be wrong, and knowing that changing course will take effort.

Without imagination, we're left responding to the reality of whatever comes next.

With it, we regain agency. We choose a direction. We stop accepting the future as inevitable and start creating the one we want.