Let death be what takes us, not lack of imagination.

When we’re faced with problems, we might see them as impossible. They might seem like the end of the world, depending of course on the problem itself.

I listened to an episode of On Being with a man called B.J Miller a while ago. Miller has lost both his legs and one of his arms in an electricity accident, and hasn’t been able to perform everyday tasks in the same way that the rest of us with all of our limbs still attached to our bodies. Of course things were difficult for him in the beginning, redefining what and who he was. Redefining what a functioning body is.

I can’t for the life of me imagine what that must be like, to have to go through such a process. But I don’t have to in order to get to know what the result was in his situation.

At one point in the conversation he said the following words: Let death be what takes us, not lack of imagination. He learned to imagine his reality being different from what people where trying to tell him it was. He told us that it’s an acquired skill, to define the reality you want to live in. He chose to believe he could still do a bunch of things, would he just imagine them.

A friend of mine has a similar story. His 2 year old daughter was hospitalised because of leukaemia. After 8 months spent at the hospital, the medical staff said there was nothing left to do. So he turned to other practices, looking for other realities. What he learned is that the reality you create for yourself and those around you is going to be the reality you find yourself in. And I can say from experience that strange things happen when you have that mindset.

What I want you to leave with is for you to realise that you have some kind of power over your reality. When you start realising that, the problems you’re facing are going to become so much easier to get around, and you’re going to have a much more pleasant journey through life.