Escaping The Box: Stop Creating Your Own Prison

We can not change. You are never going to change. You are what you are.

Despite all of the learning and growth you have had in your life, right now that is it. All of it. 

Get used to it because nothing is changing. 

Doesn’t that sound moronic? 

Of course, you can change. Of course, you can grow. 

As the Roman Stoic Philosopher Seneca said – We suffer more often in imagination than in reality. Your mind is a powerful tool that can put you in a prison of your own making. 

Getting Spicy

The super producer Rick Rubin who has worked with everyone from the Beastie Boys, Jay-Z, Adele, and Johnny Cash to name a few, was in the studio working with the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

The lead singer, Anthony Kiedis shared a poem he had been writing. Rubin thought it was beautiful and that he should show it to the band. 

He was afraid to share his poem. It was personal and nothing like their other music the Chili Peppers had made. 

They were a funk band that had rap vocals and this poem/song was a lot softer and gentler than their other music. 

Rubins convinced Kiedis to play it for one to one of the band members. He agreed and played it for John Frusciante (Lead Guitar). John then come up with the guitar part. 

This gave Kiedis the confidence to show the rest of the band and the two of them played it for the other members and they loved it. 

The sound was new for them but they learnt that anything they did was their sound, they were not confined to one sound. 

Newness feels scary because we are comfortable with the pain we know. 

Safety In Numbers

As humans, we still run on pretty primitive software. We are always trying to conserve energy. Updating ideas and changing your mind takes a lot of mental energy. 

Putting people and ideas into boxes makes sense. It makes life easier to deal with because you don’t have to think about stuff. 

We are a tribal creature so following the tribe and taking the orthodox view has a level of safety. If you were banished from the tribe your likelihood of death skyrocketed. 

Making choices or seeing the world differently not only takes a lot of energy but could put you directly in harm’s way. It makes sense why we default to boxes. 

Unboxing

You are not one thing, you can change and grow. 

If you pause and reflect for one moment you will see that you have been a complete novice, going from knowing nothing to barely knowing some things. Then through hard work and effort, you have moved to a beginner. With a few of these skills you have become competent, fewer still you have become proficient, and in the rarest of cases, you might have become an expert. 

In this briefest of moments, you can see that you have already transformed yourself. It highlights that the belief that you can not change or that you are only one thing is not only harmful but also wrong. 

People are also not one thing, they can change and grow. The intern might get prompted, do they still do intern things now? Was it right to put them in an intern box in the first place? 

Boxes are interesting framing devices and mental shortcuts but they aren’t the end and they aren’t final.

Keep changing.