Come Live Outside of the Box

A Journey Beyond Limitations

On the TV series Battlestar Galactica, Captain Adama asks Starbuck, a top pilot, to design a battle plan that will work. With almost 50,000 lives depending on the outcome, he asks her to think outside of the box. She answers simply, "I live outside the box."

In Orson Scott Card's novel Children of The Mind, travelers move instantly between distant places by going "Outside" – beyond the confines of physical reality.

Outside of the box, where there is no box. This is Reality. This is freedom.

Yet how many times each day do we confine ourselves to boxes of our own making?

The Boxes We Create

Years ago, I started a list of things I said I would never do – that I eventually ended up doing. The list grew so long that I stopped counting. Here are three revealing examples:

While visiting a neon museum on Traction Avenue in downtown Los Angeles, I surveyed the hot, concrete landscape and declared, "Who would ever live here?"

A few years later, after life's inevitable changes, I found myself living in a loft on that very street directly across from that same museum.

When I moved to California in my twenties, I promised my Pennsylvania family I would never return to the cold East Coast. As I write today, I've spent the last twenty years living just three hours from my childhood home, embracing those cold winters I once rejected.

When shopping for a kitchen faucet, I repeatedly pointed out styles I insisted I would never choose. Today, that exact "never" faucet is installed in my home – and I love it!

These experiences taught me to stop saying, "I'll never do that," because those boxes of limited thinking would inevitably be discarded, whether I was ready or not.

Beyond Judgment

When Pope Francis said, "Who am I to judge?" wasn't he suggesting that we stop putting people and ideas into boxes? To refrain from judgment, we must see beyond the confines of the mental structures we've built and work diligently to maintain.

We reveal the boxes we live in whenever we judge others for not occupying the same box we do.

Once, I read a blog about the joy of reinvention—or what I might call the joy of uncovering and living our gifts with increasing clarity.

The writer used Miley Cyrus as an example, not to endorse her specific choices but to highlight how she stepped away from boxes others had placed her in.

Several commenters harshly criticized the blogger merely for choosing Miley as an example. They weren't responding to his message; they were judging his choice of illustration.

Their reactions made their own boxes visible to all.

Reading their comments, my first thought was, "What right do they have to judge?"

And there, if anyone was looking, was a box I inhabited – I was judging the judgers.

The Reality Beyond Boxes

Outside the box, there are no sides to judge.

The phrase "Who am I to judge" is often interpreted to mean we should examine our own flaws before criticizing others.

This is a good starting point, but it isn't the destination.

It still exists within the human condition of right and wrong, good and bad—still bouncing around in a material universe where picking sides is the game everyone plays.

I recently heard a competitor declare, "I deserve to win. I've worked hard for this; it's my turn. I hope God is on my side."

Consider what this implies: that others don't deserve what she deserves, that hard work determines divine favor, that her competitors didn't work equally hard, and that God takes sides.

We make these assumptions constantly. Let's stop. This thinking exists in the box called "human, separate, and needing to survive."

Aren't you tired of that box? I know I am.

The smaller boxes stacked inside that larger box might occasionally feel comfortable. Still, since they reside within the "human-condition" box, they will always lead us back to judging others and ourselves.

Living in Reality

There is no box.

I understand that this concept often feels impossible to grasp, and that's okay. I don't understand how billions of 1s and 0s create the computer program I'm using right now, but they do.

There is no box.

Let's make it our intention to live in this Reality—where Love is the air we breathe, and oneness is not a concept but our lived experience.

What would your life look like if you stopped putting yourself in boxes?

What judgments might you release – of yourself and others?

What freedom awaits beyond the artificial boundaries we've constructed?

Step outside. Breathe. The box was never real.

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How about a free Daily Nudge to remind you of those unwanted boxes?