Very important to know what you want; imagination and will are never in conflict

[inavalan]

Remarks: it has been said that when the imagination and the will are in conflict, that the imagination will (amused) always win.

It might be a good idea to examine that statement, for in the truest sense of human motivation, the fact is that despite all appearances to the contrary, the imagination and the will are never in conflict.

However scandalous or unrealistic this proposition sounds, the fact is that people do not "will" a specific outcome of events while their imaginations vividly portray the opposing outcome.

Some of the reasons for such activities are sketched in our new book. But what you have is a learned pattern of face-saving self-deception and nefarious (with amusement) techniques, taught by parents to children; so often you pretend to want one thing, and you may say that you "will it" to happen—perhaps because what you really want is unacceptable, or so you have been taught: it is demeaning, or evil, or whatever. So in many cases people's true motives "escape" them.

It is very important to know what you want. You may discard or dismiss "what you want" as unworthy, evil, but you must first be aware of your motives. This sounds quite simplistic, and yet it is quite practically true ...

The imagination usually gives you a pretty good picture of what you really want. It usually escapes all of your attempts to cow it, to reason away its pictures. It is a mirror of your wants, and it is also the mirror of your will — for in it you see what you want to see, even if afterward you say that its pictures are unbidden, or against your conscious intent.

Imagination and will, working together, are miracle-makers, because self-deception does not stand between them.