“Think outside the box” is such a commonly used phrase these days that it seems like you hear it at least once every day. What does it mean? It means to think differently than normal, to step outside of the average person’s comfort zone.
Some people claim that it means to think outside your comfort zone, but it doesn’t, really… people describe you as “thinking outside the box” when you have a different way of looking at things than normal people (although usually only if this produces a positive result… otherwise they describe you as “nuts”), even if that is your normal way of thinking.
Everyone has their own “box”, though… it’s all the filters and lenses that you see life through. You can’t actually, in this world, be outside your own “box”… your box just changes, and possibly grows bigger. That’s one of the reasons I don’t like the “box” analogy.
A box implies rigid sides, strong boundary and structure that is difficult to alter. While all people have some rigid boundaries, things they will not do regardless of circumstances, these are relatively few. Most “rules” for most people are more guidelines than hard limits, more where the cost of doing whatever it is, be it mental cost or physical cost, is high enough that the benefit needed to outweigh that cost is unlikely to happen.
So… I have a different analogy that I prefer over the box referred to in “thinking outside the box”: I don’t have a box, I have a house.
My house can be added to when I find new beliefs or ways of thinking that I like and wish to add to my own. My house can also have pieces of it demolished if they start to have their cost outweigh their benefit. It is on an essentially infinite lot, but there remains a core piece that the rest is built around.
That core piece can be redefined if it becomes necessary. Some pieces may no longer be part of the core, or me at all, and some pieces may become important enough to be added to the core. All the other rooms in my house, however, the ones that are NOT part of the core, have their meaning in how they relate to the core. They don’t stand on their own… they are defined by how they touch and expand upon the part that IS in the core.
A box is a rigid thing likely to be destroyed, to where it is no longer a box, in any attempt to alter it. A house, on the other hand, can be added to, subtracted from, repainted and redecorated, and altered in many other fashions, even altered in its very character (such as by adding a second floor), yet it is still a house.
That seems like a much better analogy for a person, especially someone who is aware.
What kind of “house” do you live in? Do you have a different analogy that you use?
