Imagination—The First Key to Your Success Mechanism

IMAGINATION plays a far more important role in our lives than most of us realize.
I have seen this demonstrated many times in my prac­tice. A particularly memorable instance of this fact con­cerned a patient who was literally forced to visit my o f f i c e by his family. He was a man of about 40, unmarried, who held down a routine job during the day and kept himself in his room when the work day was over, never going any­where, never doing anything. He had had many jobs and never seemed able to stay with any of them for any great length of time. His problem was that he had a rather large nose and ears that protruded a little more than is normal. He considered himself "ugly" and "funny looking." He imagined that the people he came into contact with dur­ing the day were laughing at him and talking about him behind his back because he was so "odd." His imaginings grew so strong that he actually feared going out into the business world and moving among people. He hardly felt "safe" even in his own home. The poor man even imag­ined that Ms family was "ashamed" of him because he was "peculiar looking," not like "other people."