Most persons whose lives fall short of their great possibilities do so for lack of imagination. Imagination is the power of the mind to create mental images of objects previously perceived; the power to reconstruct or recombine the materials furnished by direct apprehension; the power to recombine the materials furnished by experience or memory.

It should be for the accomplishment of a worth purpose; the power of conceiving and expressing the ideal. Producing ideas is an art. But an art is a waste of effort if it spends itself on the production, no matter how skillful, of something not worth doing. The human mind is not limited to the present by means of perception, or to the past by means of memory, but can anticipate the future by means of imagination.

Man’s imagination enables him to think things out before he does them. Therefore if he perceives an error, he need not actually commit the error. He can discard the process before making the error and use his imagination to avert it and try another method.

The ability to produce ideas relies heavily upon imagination. Imagination is the source from which arise the mental pictures which are essential to the functioning of intelligence. It is the inspiration of all creative production. It has led scientists to all their great discoveries and is the starting point for all new inventions. It is indeed the driving force and guide of all our activity.

Imagination, obviously, is imagining or picturing. It is the power that enables us to record our minds, to remember, to recall at will, pictures of previous experiences, and to recombine these into different forms and impressions. The mind draws the mental pictures it makes from external objects. These pictures can only be created through our own perception and feelings. Each of our senses conveys the picture appropriate to it to the brain. Through the eyes we form visual images composed of line, form, light and color. Our ears provide images of sound in its infinity of combinations. The senses of taste and smell bring us pictures of flavor and perfume while the sense of touch represents to our mind such tactile sensations as heat, cold, damp, rough, sharp, soft, smooth, and so on.

Everyone has the ability to see pictures in their mind. Imagination is well named a plan making department. There is no limit to your ability to use imagination. People do not generally use it very efficiently but it is there and can be developed. You can take an idea or the memory of an experience and join it with other ideas and memories. You have the power to associate ideas and think through to a logical conclusion, thereby coming up with a new idea.

Other things being equal, the person who has the greatest store of concepts, or mental images concerning the general subject of their definite purpose, and who has that material the most thoroughly classified and indexed, either in their memory or mechanically; that person will manifest the highest degree of success in their work of constructive imagination. “That [person],” says Thomas Carlyle, “is the most original who can adapt from the greatest number of sources.”

Creation generally consists in the shifting of attributes from on thing to another. In other words, we give the thing with which we are working some new quality or characteristic or attribute heretofore applied to something else.

You not only can see such pictures of past memories and experiences in the mind, but you can create pictures, patterns and plans in your mind which were not there. Life, being responsive, flows over these plans and patterns, creating in reality what you have depicted in you mind. Everyone has imagination and everyone uses it, either to make plans for what they want or don’t want. The action is automatic. This is why it is so important to imagine only what you want, not what you fear or don’t want.

You must be the engineer.