The Connection Between Hard Work and Imagination
By JD Jean-Jacques
Why do we imagine our futures?
You’ve done it before; we all have. Imagining what your future may look like is comparable to jumping straight to the tenth episode of the season when you’re only on the second or flipping straight to the middle of a book when you have just only gotten through the prologue. The only difference is that the future episodes or chapters of our lives do not actually exist. We use our imaginative capabilities to gauge unfavorable outcomes that could eventuate in our lives; then, out of fear, we focus our energy into ensuring the original, pre-written outline that is our imagination. Imagining how our futures will unfold is our stubborn attempt to actively “think” our dreams and wants into a surety. Albert Einstein says that imagination is “the preview of life’s coming attractions.” It’s adventurous, it’s innate, it’s essential and it’s what makes every person on the planet of equal worth.
Be that as it may, we are not all The Oracle from The Matrix—we don’t have clairvoyant abilities that allow us to accurately predict our lives, let alone others’ lives. If that were the case, then there would be no existence of choice, and we may as well be living in a simulation—but that’s a different discussion. This being said, think of the ability you have to imagine your future as the most efficient tool for “predicting” your life; an imagined future is essentially an informed prediction. However, a mere prediction won’t get you very far in life and certainly will not help you to achieve your goals. Author Peter Drucker wisely states, “Plans [predictions] are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.” Hard work. Without it, the future you’ve imagined for yourself is just an asymptotic fantasy.
Basketball legend Michael Jordan spent his offseason taking hundreds of jump shots per day; billionaire Mark Cuban did not take a vacation for seven years while starting his first business; General Electric Chief Executive Officer Jeffery Immelt spent 24 years putting in 100 hour weeks; Venus and Serena Williams were up hitting tennis balls at 6a.m. from the time they were seven and eight years old, respectively. As kids, teenagers and adults, these people were able to take their abstract aspirations and stamp them onto reality through consistent hard work. Your ideal future, whatever that may be, should evoke a persistence so that you can close the gap between now and then.
The symbiotic relationship between your imagination and hard work is what ultimately generates success. You cannot work hard without imagining your goal, and imagining your goal is nonsensical without working hard to achieve it. The wonderful thing about this powerful combination is that anyone on Earth can exercise it. It does not take anything special to map out your future and work hard to make it happen.
So, why do we imagine our futures? Imagination, coupled with hard work, prepares us for success. It gives us personal goals—small and large—to work towards over the course of our lives; it is the essence of the American Dream ethos. Without it, our lives would be stagnant and obsolescent. We imagine so that we can put ourselves to work and deliberately craft our lives in doing so. Get to imagining, because in the words of Muhammad Ali, “The man who has no imagination has no wings.”