The Midpoint of a Life Well Lived

Somewhere between what has already happened and what might yet come, we find ourselves. It’s a strange place to be, this thin line called the present. One foot resting on memory, the other stretching toward the unknown. And if you think about it, imagination is what lets us walk that line.

Memory gives us stories. Wounds and wisdom. Things we’ve done, things we regret, things we’d give anything to relive. But memory alone can trap us. It pulls us backwards, convincing us that we are only what has already been.

At the other end is prophecy—the imagined future. Not in a mystical sense, but in the everyday choices we make that shape what comes next. Prophecy is possibility. Hope. Direction. But prophecy without action is just a wish, not a plan.

So what connects the two?

Imagination.

Imagination is how we translate the past into meaning, and meaning into motion. It’s how we turn pain into purpose, learning into vision, and vision into action. It lets us take the raw material of memory and sculpt it into something that hasn’t yet existed.

In this sense, imagination isn’t just about creativity. It’s about agency. It’s how we stop being a passive echo of our past and start becoming an active author of our future.

So if you're feeling stuck, if you're not sure who you are or where you're heading, ask yourself this:

What story am I telling myself about the past?

What story do I want to live into next?

And what might imagination make possible between the two?

Don’t wait for a crisis to strike before you ask yourself these questions. Today is the first day of the rest of your life.

We are not bound by memory, condemned to go on living the life we’ve always lived. Nor is it guaranteed that our vision will become reality. But we are always standing in between, pen in hand.