I wonder if thinking outside the box would improve my life?

Maybe living outside the box would be pleasant. Sometimes the priority items on my to-do list really do stifle and it seems my life is pretty confined.

This “outside the box” idea seems to be a possible solution to a lot of situations. Over the last year or two, the phrase has become, well, overused, a clichA?©, and meaningless. Nearly every board and committee has uttered these words when confronted with a new issue.

Problems with homework? Let’s think outside the box for a solution. Not enough money for this project? Maybe it’s time we think outside the box. Enough!!

One of my school teachers, watching me use a piece of cardboard for a dustpan, said I had initiative. Marion Hodgdon probably never thought I was thinking outside the box 50 years ago. But she was not one given to clichA?©s.

To me, “outside the box” means creative thinking, use of a different perspective, or using one’s imagination and taking a chance.

The other day I read a serious article (it must have been serious, it was on the financial page) where a newly successful business was quoted as “climbing out of the box,” conjuring up images in my mind of cats and other kinds of boxes.

How did we get from thinking to climbing? Is this evolution of a modern variety?

And, what is the box, anyway? Is it the routine we’ve established for ourselves? Is it the accepted way of doing things? Is it what the teachers used to mean when they told us to “stay inside the lines” when we’d be coloring helter-skelter all over the page?

It’s hard to get used to being an “outside the box” person when we’ve spent a lifetime staying inside the lines. To use another clichA?©, isn’t that “sending the wrong message?”

Talking heads spend a lot of time in discussions about getting (and thinking) outside the box, yet time and time again I’ve heard them fall back on that tired phrase and concept, “….the way we’ve always done it…”

Often, the way we always did things wouldn’t work today and the way we always did things wasn’t always right or successful. We used to collect a poll tax on all men over 21. (Not women.) We used to call women chattel. We used to have a racially segregated military.

Personally, I think it’s time for everyone to think before they utter “outside the box” and come up with a different phrase. Be daring. Use your imagination. Be creative. Look at an issue from the perspective of your opposite. Define the box.

See you next week.

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