Boxed In

The Lines Are Imaginary

I make a square of masking tape on the floor in my house. It doesn’t take more than a few minutes for a cat to take up post within that square. There’s something in their head that makes them feel more secure within the confines of that imaginary box.

As I stand there, laughing at the cat for its compulsive action, it occurs to me that I am standing withing the square box of the room. The room is surrounded by the square outline of the entire building. The fence around the grounds outside is an even larger square. Just as the cat feels comfortable within her square, so too, I feel a sense of peace within my own set of 90-degree angles. Just like the cat, I am sitting within the confines of squares around squares around squares.

We do this to ourselves. We do it to our minds. Whatever the situation, we find ourselves resorting to the same old thought patterns. We scurry inside that square with which we’re so familiar, and rummage around until we find the tried and true answer that has served us before. It doesn’t occur that a better idea might be lying just outside the lines.

Think outside the box is the catchy, if hackneyed, refrain that comes to mind. That oft-repeated phrase is meant to stimulate fresh thought. But it’s not enough to just think out there. You need to put yourself outside the box. Too often, we live within the confines of the comfort squares that we draw around ourselves, never venturing to the area outside. You know, out there where things can get challenging. Scary, even.

It hard to put yourself outside the box when that shape is the prevailing model for our civilization. Every day, millions of work-a-day office dwellers take up their posts inside a cubicle or, if they have paid enough dues, the square enclosure of their offices. Sure, some have a window. Some may even have a curved wall, but it is still a box.

I’ve spent most of my life outside the box. Early in my career as a journalist, I felt unease with the confines of a “staff” job. There was a role to play. I was either assigned to shoot the film for a story, or I was assigned to do the reporting. Both were squares taped out by the Assignment Editor. A few years later, I became the Assignment Editor, and it was my job to lay the taped squares around the rest of the box dwellers. But I was still inside a square, albeit slightly larger.

It didn’t take long for me to pull that square of tape up from the floor around me, striking out as an independent documentary film maker and freelance journalist. Every project I took on had its own set of squares, to be sure. But I at least had some measure of control over where the tape was laid down. A taste of that ability to think freely was enough to convince me that I would have to spend the rest of my life in that undefined area outside of the squares.

Yes, there are scary times out here. There have been failures, embarrassments, even costly mistakes. There are also wonderful successes and experiences that just don’t occur within the square. In a way, giving up that comfort the square suggests (but does not actually provide) has given me even more control over my life.

No matter how much protection you think your square provides, things that exist outside that square have a way of seeping in through the seams and surprising you. It’s better to meet them outside those confines, where you have more room to maneuver. A freer thought process usually leads to better pathways forward.

Don’t just think outside the box. Pull that tape off the floor, step outside of its confines with both feet and take a look around. You will be surprised at how much you can see.

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