Think Outside of the Box

When I was growing up, I'm pretty sure the expression "thinking outside of the box" didn't exist. The phrase is now so commonly used that it has its own Wikipedia entry. But it's more than a phrase, isn't it? It's more of a mindset, even a gestalt. These days, it's arguably "best practices". It's pretty exciting to live in an age where thinking outside of the box is more the rule than the exception. Life outside of the box involves taking chances and exploring creative solutions. The possibilities are endless.

I hope this love affair with creativity hangs on for a while and I hope our children benefit from it as they should - in terms of how we, as the grownups in their lives, relate to them, in terms of how they approach problem-solving throughout their lives and in terms of how they consider their career options as they get older. Let's make sure we remember how much fun it was to watch our toddlers forsaking the toys for the boxes they came in. After all, a box is almost never just a box! Check out Antoinette Portis' Not a Box if you need to refresh your memory. As our kids get older, it seems more important than ever to embrace a creative, out of the box way of thinking. We can't spare them disappointment and we shouldn't try. Instead, we need to arm them to deal with disappointment and encourage the creative impulse that shone through when they were younger - if you want to go to the moon but you don't have a spaceship, don't give up and don't wallow, just get a box!