You're a fan. You have imagination. It's what led you to make the ultimate historical fantasy baseball team. It's what let you make Steampunk Avatar: The Last Airbender fanart. You are a person that gets into information, plays with it, and shares it.
That imagination is not a waste of time. It is critical for your success.
I've come more and more to the conclusion that success – we're talking career here, but really in anything – is dependent partially upon having a good imagination.
If you can dream, you can solve problems. If you can imagine, you can find new ideas. If you can speculate, you can create.
If you have your imagination going, you also feel alive. When your mind is able to come up with new ideas and have fun, you're enjoying what you do.
Imagination gives you the power to do. Imagination also makes what you do fulfilling and enjoyable.
So cultivate your imagination. Enjoy it. Play with it. Apply it. Enjoy and indulge all those strange fannish, geeky activities from fanfic to fanart to web pages and more. This keeps your imagination healthy and pumped and exercised.
Then, in your career (and indeed all your life) you have this active, powerful imagination to provide you new ideas. To drive you. To play with and enjoy all aspects of your life.
All those seemingly useless Role Play games and LOLArt? That's exercise for the imagination.
Imagination is key to success.
– Steven Savage