Are you a visionary or a dreamer?

Imagination.

It is an awesome powerful tool that has been used for countless things by billions of people for the last few thousand years.

Imagination has kept us entertained through the creation of literally millions of plays,books,movies songs and works of fine art. Nearly every great invention throughout history has been the direct result of imagination.

Without imagination nothing new could ever be created, well not intentionally anyways. A person first must conceive the seed of a new idea and then continue to use their imagination to cause that seed to begin to grow into the thing which they see within their mind's eye, so that their vision of the thing can become real.

It is the tool that is used the most by people who want to change their lives for the better and by those that want to make the world a better place. But there are really two main types of imagination and it is important to know the difference between them.

There are visions and there are dreams. Vision includes plans of action, goal setting, seeing an end result and working towards it. Vision is about your mind disagreeing with the world around it, about the way things are as opposed to the way it should be and deciding that you are going to do whatever it takes to bring about what you see in your  mind. It is a powerful force that bears with it the seeds of change.

On the contrary, dreaming has no power behind it. There is no drive to change the way things are. Dreaming includes hoping,wishing,wanting,desiring. On its own it is essentially a waste of time and even though the dream may be a beautiful one, it really only causes us pain if there is no intention of putting in the effort to make any change. Don't get me wrong a dream can turn into a vision, but until it does it is useless.

Men of vision would be people like Gandhi, the Wright brothers, Thomas Edison or Alexander the Great. And although he is famous for saying "I have a dream" Dr Martin Luther King was a visionary. He saw the world as a very different place than the one he was living in and set out to make his vision match reality.

Visionaries make the world into their image. Dreamers pine over the fact that the world is not how they envision it. People who have vision, while not satisfied with the way things are, are generally happier than people who spend their time dreaming. This is because even if it takes a long time to succeed they are making their dreams come true rather than waiting for someone else to come along and do it for them. Being a visionary empowers you. Being a dreamer disempowers you.

Which are you? Which would you rather be? How different would your world be if your dreams became visions, if you actually spent the time and energy to make your dreams come true?