No Such Thing as Thinking “Outside the Box”

There is no such thing as thinking outside the box. You are always thinking in a box and that is by design. It’s just that some people have bigger boxes or have different boxes of the same size, regardless everyone always thinks in a box.

Most people would love to be labelled as someone who thinks “outside the box”. A lot of organisations desire people who think outside the box, but when you stop to think about it, it really doesn’t mean anything. It is this nebulous skill that everyone chases but, framed in the manner that it is, it is of no help.

What people should work on instead is making their boxes bigger. Talk to different people, understand their perspectives, read books, gain knowledge, which eventually expands your box. A bigger box contains more things, allowing you to form more connections between distinct objects and intuite something new from them.

And is thinking outside the box really appreciated in instances when it actually happens. Galileo’s discoveries that proved Copernicus’ theory of heliocentrism was vehemently opposed by the Catholic church at the time. Charles Darwin was criticised for his theory of natural evolution. The status quo has never evolved without resistance.

A lot of people especially, managers and leaders in the workplace like to preach “think outside the box” but they don’t really grasp what it is that they are saying. It is something that should be said to sound inspiring. They say it. Everyone shakes their head and is like — “I would want to do that”. But no one actually steps “outside the box” for a moment to think what exactly is being said and asked of them.

How was that for thinking outside the box about “thinking outside the box” :p

Originally published to my blog The Existential Millenial.