Boxes

The Berenstain Bear story, “Inside, Outside, Upside Down” was one of my favorites as a young child. In my mind I rode along with Brother Bear as he climbed inside a box and bounced his way to town and back again on the back of a truck.

Children (and apparently bears) are fascinated with boxes. Expensive toys sit on the shelf while the boxes they come in open doorways to the world of imagination. An old refrigerator box is the most sought after but any old box will do on a rainy afternoon. Inside a box is a place to decorate your very own house with tiny chairs and tea for two, or a castle filled with gallant knights and ladies in waiting.

Grownups don’t like boxes. Inside a box is synonymous with closed-mindedness, a lack of innovation, or the opposite of creative. “Think outside the box” has become a catch phrase for supposedly forward-thinking industry leaders intent on producing more innovative consumer-based products …

which they will ironically deliver in boxes.

So where are you? Are you inside the box, or outside the box?