Be careful what you wish for, you may get it

One of the most fun parts of storyboarding is envisioning how much you are going to love whatever it is you are storyboarding. The technique works really well in helping us get motivation and zest to tackle whatever it is we've been procrastinating about.

Some people advise that you envision the great mansion you'd like to live in, the dream car, the money you hope to have. I personally am wary of this, unless one knows one is doing it for fun, but doesn't become overly invested in the envisioned results. I'm wary of too much focus on riches, things, material success because sometimes, this focus can seem a bit like an attempt at magical conjuring. Literature and Scripture are full of stories that warn us against this kind of conjuring. We don't want to "let an evil genie out of the lamp".

A friend sent me one of those email forwards that I usually find irritating. I'm not going to paste this one in here because there was lots about the tone of it that I didn't like, but the message has stuck with me.

It starts with this: Open up to Psalm 106:14-15 and notice, "GOD granted their request but sent leaness to their souls."

I believe that visualization and goal-setting work to bring us closer and closer to achieving our goals. They are techniques, and, as such, value-neutral. They tend to work whether you have good goals or bad goals, and whether the pictures you envision are negative or positive. Hitler had a vision for Germany. He had goals. That's why I hope that when we think of the overall movie of our life, we think about character-building, what the Bible calls "treasures in heaven" rather than earthly success or riches, because these treasures, which bring inward joy and contentment, are far more valuable in the long term than any amount of riches without that inward joy.

The other thing about storyboarding a good character is that tragedies in life, setbacks, outer circumstances, cannot rob you of it.