Who Says You Can Never Go Back?

​by Skip Cohen

It's Sunday, and I never write about business and marketing, but instead, I like to run amuck on just about any other topic. This morning, I started by looking at images and illustrations I've bought over the years from Adobe Stock. The first image was the one above, followed by the image below.

As kids, our imaginations ran wild. We'd lie on the grass and look at the clouds, finding all kinds of hidden critters. We'd build spaceships out of refrigerator boxes, forts out of blankets draped over the dining room table, and entire scenes of great battles with a bag of army men. There was no limit to what could be accomplished in creating our own virtual world - and we did it without one single electronic device.

But we got older and lazier - why create a virtual event in our mind when we could do it on the computer? And we stopped lying in the grass because of fire ants and pesticides. And refrigerator boxes for spaceships and clubhouses - NOT - If we get a large appliance delivered, the box is immediately taken away by the delivery company for recycling.

But that old line about "you can never go back" just isn't true. When it comes to your imagination and daydreaming, you can always turn back the clock. All that creativity is still there, screaming for an opportunity to be cut loose. The challenge is silencing the day-in-day-out noise, keeping stress at a distance, and allowing yourself to waste a little time and ponder some of the "what-ifs" in your life.

If you need to build a spaceship out of a cardboard box - go for it! Who's stopping you? We're all victims of our own sense of propriety - we're grown-ups and supposed to act like it. Whatever happened to the spirit of Peter Pan, who lived in each of us? We said we'd never grow up, but we gave in. We sold out - Now it's time to turn back the clock a little.

And there's my point - take the time to daydream. Find a way to block out all the noise, lock up all the stress, and start staring at the clouds. If necessary, build a fort or, better yet, a castle with a wide moat - pull up the drawbridge and don't let anything interrupt your creative spirit.

Wishing you a day ahead with time to let your spirit fly and daydream a little. Challenge all the daily paradigms and let your creativity juices flow. Life doesn't always have to get in the way of our dreams. Take the time to appreciate the people you love the most. Go for those long therapeutic hugs I always write about and, in the process, share some of those dreams you need to get back to chasing.
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Happy Sunday...or Monday on the other side of the world!