Why I Read (and Reviewed) a Fictional Book

[caption id=”attachment_214" align=”alignleft” width=”300"]

Photo by Prab Bhatia Photography http://bit.ly/1jEJ8YA
Liscensed Attribution No-Derivs http://bit.ly/1asPTMR[/caption]

Earlier this week I blogged about a fictional book that I finished over the weekend. But, you might be thinking, why would I do that? Doesn’t a review of a fantasy-fiction book seem out-of-place alongside posts about health, fitness, productivity, and goal setting?

I don’t think so.

I think it’s really easy for us to forget the value of reading something creative and imaginative. At least it is for me. Most of my reading is imminently practical with “steps for this” or “methods for that.” I tend to read books with action steps, review questions, and bullet points. I want useful information. But those kinds of books are missing something.

Not to say that those books aren’t good and useful. They are. In fact, they dominate my reading list for this year. But they are missing something important, something vital to our mental diets. They don’t feed our imaginations.

The imagination is something we value highly in others, but tend to undervalue in ourselves. We ooh and ahh over the latest innovation in smart phones but easily dismiss our own imagination as “wild flights of fancy.” The result can be that, like an unused muscle, our imaginations atrophy. We lose the ability to think of new things, to envision a different and better future.

Reading fanciful and imaginative writing gives us the ability to exercise our imagination in a non-threatening way. We don’t have to go from nothing to inventing the iPhone of our industry. We can use the words on the page to paint pictures of another world in our minds. It’s like weight-lifting for the imagination.

No matter what your career or life goals are, you can benefit from this “imagination training.” Using your imagination can help you to envision the better future that motivates you to reach your goals. It can drive you to new and innovative approaches and products.

A healthy imagination can help change the course of your entire life.

What are you doing to develop your imagination? Do you think you are good at imagining what could be?