by Dr. Denis Waitley
Releasing Your Seed of Creative Energy
Napoleon once said, “Imagination rules the world.” Einstein believed, “Imagination is more important than knowledge, for knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”
Among all living organisms on the earth, only the human being was created without a built-in “software” program for successful living. Insects, animals and birds know instinctively how
Photo Credit, makelessnoise.
they must behave and what they must do in order to survive. Humans also have survival instincts, but we also possess abilities much more marvelous and complex than any animal’s. Because animals have instincts for daily living that are limited to finding food and shelter, avoiding or overcoming enemies, and procreation, they have no goals beyond survival and security.
The human being, with no pre-recorded computer program as a lifeguide, is blessed with a creative imagination. This is why healthy role models and positive family support, superimposed upon strong spiritual values, are so important. Since we are not predestined as members of a wandering herd, victimized and imprisoned within a fixed environment, we need maps and charts to guide us. In successful individuals these maps and charts are called role models and values. In unsuccessful individuals they are more like walls and reefs.
All individuals are born without a sense of “self.” We are like tape recorders without the key message — with some pre-recorded facts and background music, but no central theme. We are like mirrors with no reflections. First through our senses, during infancy — then through language and observation — we tape record, build, and photograph our video, audio, and sensory cassettes of ourselves. This recorded self-concept or self-image — this mental picture of self– when nourished and cultivated, is a primary field in which happiness and success grow and flourish. But this same mental self-concept, when undernourished or neglected, becomes a spawning pond for low achievement, deviant behavior, and unhappiness.
Recently, I heard of a psychologist who gave an intelligence test to a 12-year-old boy. Part of the test consisted of putting pieces of a jigsaw puzzle together. He tried it, but quickly gave up in frustration, saying: “I can’t do it, it’s too hard!” His self-image told him that if something looks like a test and you have difficulty with it, then you give up.
Many people see themselves as inadequate. The early messages recorded on their “inner video cassettes” say: “I can’t do things very well, especially new things. I don’t think people like the way I look. There’s no sense in really trying, because I’ll probably get it wrong and won’t succeed anyway.” These are the surprisingly large numbers of individuals in this abundant country who have the most difficulty learning and advancing and who are problems to themselves and others.
I have found that the successful people, on the other hand, are those whose “inner video” carries a message something like this: “I can do things pretty well — a variety of things. I can try new challenges and be successful. When things don’t go smoothly at first, I keep trying or get more information to do it in a different way until it works out right.” These are the individuals who present the fewest problems to anyone, in society, professional life, or in their schools and homes. These are the few who can, and usually do, learn the most and who can share and give the most to others from what they have learned. They have discovered that their imagina¬tions serve as a life-governing device — that if your self-image can’t possibly see yourself doing something or achieving something, you literally cannot do it. “It’s not what you are that holds you back, it’s what you think you are not “