Equal Parts

If I had equal parts of imagination and follow-through, I'd be rich.

At least, I think so.  Then again, I am kind of full of myself.

I'd have patented and sold my late-night idea of a formula dispenser (of which my brother even designed a 3-d model).

I would run an after school center where kids would come for private music lessons, homework help, personal tutoring, theater groups, competite sports, and exercise programs.  And it would be funded largely through grants so the kids who really needed it would have access.

I would be making gobs of money as the account manager of high-profile ad campaigns.  I'd work on the top floor of a downtown skyscraper, and I'd eat lunch at the corner bistro with my coworkers. 

The laundry at my house would always be clean, folded, and put away.  I'd make healthy dinners which we'd all eat together.  We'd actually be able to have a dinner table conversation, because the kids would be so well disciplined, they'd just want to be respectful.

Someone, somewhere would be performing my acclaimed, hit Broadway musical, based on Billy Joel's Leningrad.  I'd go further into that one, but it just exposes how far my imagination can run.

These are the kinds of thoughts that occupy my brain when nothing else demands it's attention.  

When driving, for example.  Subconscious thought handles the speedometer and the don't-run-into-the-car-in-front-of-you, and I disappear mentally into these lands of fantasy.

Mopping, mowing the lawn, shaving my legs... these are all activities I can do while my brain wanders. 

Sometimes I wonder if all this wandering is a sign of discontentment with my current lot.  That wonder is always immediately dispelled, however, because I love everything I am doing right now.  The job.  The extra-curriculars.  The kids.  The husband.  The house.  The ward.  The calling.  The neighborhood.  The friends.  It is all great!

What does it all mean, then, my inclination to wander?  I think it just means that there are so many ways I could be happy.  How lucky am I to have the dreams and the skills that if I ever decided to add the missing incredient (hard work), I could actually do most of the things I listed.  It's a mantra we always teach to young kids, but it's one I've always believed: I can be anything I want to be.

So, if I had equal parts imagination and follow through, sure... maybe I could be rich.  I feel pretty blessed, though, that even without the follow through, I'm pretty darn happy.