Make over your teenage habit: collaging your dreams without the glue stick

It's a practice I consider a bit embarrassing to admit --- a holdover from adolescence, if you will --- but I get a lot of pleasure out of collaging. Just to be clear, these are not the works of an artiste; it's me, sitting on the floor watching When Harry Met Sally for the 47 millionth time, and ripping out pages from magazines that appeal to me. It's an activity, like knitting, that gets you out of the chatter of your mind and into a layer below that's quiet, even meditative. Usually I just rip out the colors and shapes that appeal to me and then realize like a bolt of lightening --- oh! --- I just cannot get enough of red, orange, and yellow, or that I want to wear soft artistic clothes, or that I am repeatedly drawn to anything that vaguely evokes France. It helps unify a vision for decorating my apartment or what spring clothes I want to buy.

But you can also use collaging to get to something deeper, or to envision a bigger goal. Athletes use visualization to sharpen their performance before a game; you could use the same technique before a test or an event where you have to speak in front of a crowd. But you could even apply the same principles of visualization by creating a dream board. It's not like Field of Dreams --- if you paste it, it will come --- but creating a collage of what you want out of your life, either in the short or long-term, can help keep you focused on living your best life and taking the necessary next steps. You could focus on a mood you wish there were more of in your life by creating a collage just of relaxing blues and greens. If you want to cook more, you could collect photos of simple, beautiful food. Or you could get pretty literal, spelling out exactly what you envision for yourself, like pasting a woman in standing bow next to the words "yoga once a week." You can always kick it old school with magazines and a glue stick, but since so many of us sit at computers all day bombarded by images, it can be simpler (and less messy) to just start collecting images on our desktop that we love. You can put all the images together using the Oprah.com online dream board application. Polyvore.com was designed for creating outfits, but you could create a collage that goes beyond clothes. How's that for technology working for you?