Many people do not have the imagination to look at things in a different way, and are happy to accept what they are told as being true. The ability to think laterally can allow you to adapt knowledge to original problems and identify solutions.

And it's why daydreams should never be seen as a waste of time.

We must always be deligent about what we think...

I would guess you have to be a free thinker before you can think critically, they go together.

Sadly it’s not quite as simple as that...children born into religious families are trained from birth to accept the existence of god as a fact without the freedom to choose whether to believe it or not, and therefore by adulthood have lost the ability to think critically, at least in the religious sense. I was born into a family who identified as freethinkers, as a child my family allowed me to make my own mind up on religion, by encouraging me to read the bible and other philosophies and freely think for myself what I should believe, when I was old enough to do so. Although the term freethinker is generally used in reference to religion, it can apply to politics or any other belief system when someone holds views contrary to the accepted orthodoxy.