WHAT ELSE COULD IT BE? 

Look again. 

Find something ordinary.

Something so familiar you barely notice it anymore.

A spoon.

A button.

A cardboard box.

A fallen leaf.

A paperclip.

A sock without its partner.

A stone from the driveway.

Put it in front of you.

And for a moment, forget what you have been told it is.

Ask instead—

What else could it be?

Turn the spoon upside down.

Perhaps it is a tiny mirror.

A boat.

The body of a peculiar silver bird.

Maybe the cardboard box is not a box at all.

Maybe it is a theater.

A castle.

A doorway.

A robot waiting patiently for someone to give it arms.

That stone?

Perhaps it needs eyes.

Perhaps the leaf is a sail.

Perhaps twelve buttons arranged in a circle become something that didn't exist five minutes ago.

You don't have to actually make any of these things.

You may, of course.

But today the making isn't really the important part.

Seeing is.

Creativity often begins long before our hands ever touch a pencil or a paintbrush.

It begins in that tiny moment when we look at something everyone else has already named—

and wonder whether it might be something else.

Children do this naturally.

A blanket becomes a kingdom.

A stick becomes a wand.

Two chairs and a sheet become someplace no grown-up has ever visited.

Perhaps imagination isn't something we lose as we grow older.

Perhaps we simply become very certain about what things are.

So, choose one ordinary thing today.

Look at it longer than necessary.

Turn it around.

Hold it upside down.

And ask the wonderfully unreasonable question—

What else could you be?

Then listen for the ridiculous answer.

You might be surprised by what has been hiding in plain sight.