5. The power of the imagination (imagine yourself living a different reality)

A great human gift is the ability to use the imagination to put yourself in another’s shoes, try on a different life for size or experiment with different lifestyles.

Take two different lifestyles:
1. imagine that you are a great singer or artist and that you have arrived at a great pinnacle of success; you are widely known, people recognise you on the street and your face appears everywhere. You want for nothing, you have a life of luxury. It is what you have always wanted.
2. You had worked in the business world but became disillusioned and gave it up to work with an NGO working abroad in an underdeveloped country. It is hard work and the hours are long, the working conditions are poor, and yet you feel in the right place. You have a sense that there is something guiding your life that has brought you to this place.

Take each situation in turn and use your imagination to enter into that lifestyle. Imagine what it would feel like: the sights, sounds, smells and feelings. Then look back and see how it leaves you afterwards, sometimes one scenario can be thrilling and exciting but may not last; another can be more difficult to enter into but can leave a lasting sense of satisfaction. What are you left with, which are you drawn to?