Divine Imagination a Motivator For Good to Change Lives

 

Some 50 years ago at about 7 years of age, I wondered to myself what life would be like when I turned 50.  It was unfathomable back then to begin to understand what the year 2016 would hold for me. That seemed like a century in time.  My childlike imagining at seven hoped for flying cars, skyways where the real-life Jetson’s existed and the space time continuum enabled us to in a blink of an eye, like Star Trek be transported across the wide expanse of the world to wherever we wanted to go.

Fast forward to 2016, my life was nothing like what I had imagined as it was a year of great loss. However, with one exception, that childlike imagination of wanting to journey to the great beyond of America came true because in 1986 many years earlier I arrived in the United States.  What was awaiting me I did not know, with childlike excitement the thought of Disneyland, Hollywood - walking those hallowed streets paved with the hands and feet of the silver screens veteran actors and actresses was going to be a thrilling experience.

This thrilling excitement was a derivative of Saturday afternoons growing up.  After the chores and before dinner meant nostalgic black and white movies from yester year were watched keenly.  The likes of  Gregory Peck, William Holden, Olivia De Havilland, John Wayne, Betty Davis, Doris Day, Lauren Becall, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Dean Martin, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Marilyn Monroe, Gene Kelly, Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Katherine Hepburn to name a few were flashed on the screen on Saturday, one week at a time over a lifetime.  Eyes glued to the awe of the early days of Hollywood.  I recall being mesmerized by Singing in the Rain and wanting to learn to tap dance.  When it rained, I would hum the tune and find a happiness in the rain, the tap, tap, tapping of my feet splashing in the water.  The splendid imagining of LIGHTS, CAMERA AND ACTION.

Over the years I have created my own visual Life Autobiography filled with instances of lights, camera and action.  The light was my learning, my knowledge currency, while the camera was the lens of my perspective. Understanding and vision for greater things.  Action, well that speaks for itself as long as you put what you learn into fruition. Action is a verb to create motions, movement, enable a motivation to achieve and engage in the possibilities.

Goals and achievements take tenacity, practice, hard work and commitment.  As  child didn’t worry about commitment, my impetus was doing what I love.  Certainly, there were times I pulled the “Do I have to card,”  only because I wanted to for a moment go play like the other kids.  I think I knew if I didn’t act, I could not improve in my music or dance lessons.  Finding joy and gratitude in those activities was essential.  When I changed my focus, in time my joy increased.  Periodically that imagination would show up to push me to work harder for a dream, a hope to become.

To become, those words sifted in and out of my life frequently – what do you want to become when you grow up. Some of those answers then were an Airline Hostess for Air New Zealand, a professional dancer, a writer like Ernest Hemmingway, a traveler of the world and an artist.  We have all heard those words that these are foolish thinking, and we need to follow something reliable and safe as a profession. This socialization of putting aside ones dreams, hopes and passions for something stable doesn’t teach up to explore the possibilities – we just settle.   I know that I have always dreamed big or wildly. A gift to myself a divine imagination that ran away with itself.

I allowed it in secret, I allowed it in moment of extreme need to push me past the doldrums of life and depression. Obviously, my feet were firmly planted on the ground, in times where inspiration was needed, imagination carried me as a great motivator of possibilities.  Some of my best expressions of art or writing came from those initial imaginations, where exuberance of life and excitement left my heart full of hope and ready to activate, convert if you will an energy glow into something beyond imagination.

In my junior year at Brigham Young University, Idaho, in a humanities class, I discovered Dr Randy Pausch and his last lecture.  On my journey to write this blog, I remembered his words, humor and enthusiasm for life despite being ill.  His objective was not just to give a lecture, but to leave a legacy for his children and those that would follow.  To dream, to imagine the possible takes heart and not to give up on where you want to go in life.

Randy Pausch said it well in his “Last Lecture, . […] “Give yourself permission to dream never lose that childlike wonder,  it’s just too important, it’s what drives us. “  His lecture was a culmination of life defining moments of a child’s dream and imagination of that dream.  All were realized and that is important, however the greater importance is living your life to the fullest.  His last lecture was truly his last lecture as he was diagnosed with terminal cancer.  I found his story ratified the lens I saw life through.

Dream Big, turn stumbling blocks into steppingstones, make every moment count, light the path of others and champion their accomplishments, dreams and passions.   I appreciated Dr Pausch’s perspective on roadblocks and brick walls,  “The brick walls are there to see how badly you want your goal.”  It made me think how much I was willing to wholly give of myself with transparency, honesty, ownership, gratitude and time to reach my dreams, my goals.

Would I be willing to live life fully even if I was ill and time was running out.  The answer is clear, yes, I would because much like Dr Pausch, being sad because of cancer brings no meaning to those around you and with all you have left living life with zest and enthusiasm is a much greater gift.  Greeting each day with a sense of empowerment and dreaming of, using my divine imagination to be well, to see that end goal of warms soft sand and ocean waves kept me one step closer.  Like those brick walls Dr Pausch mentioned, I found them, discovered a way to get around and through them with purpose. Again, anchored in a vision, a dream a hope of at the end of my treatment, I would be on that beach.

I could not give anyone permission to take that dream, that hope, that vision away for me.  It had a sustaining purpose.  The purpose to get through chemo and radiation so that I could stand with gratitude share my story, my first, not my last of many lectures, podcasts, and articles.

Post Script (P. S.)

My dreams have come true, I have travelled outside of New Zealand, living in the United States for over 30 years.  In 2024 I will be a published author and I have my own radio show that I am building to inspire and share my story to change the lives of others.  I have developed my writing skills as a ghostwriter for a large global campaign, Imperfectly Perfect Campaign.   Most of all I am grateful to all my friends who along the way believed in me, stood with me through those life challenges and cheered me on to keep going.  This was not a journey I travelled alone.  All is possible if we choose to believe in those small sparks the ignite a fire within.  I love my life and living it ALIVE every day.