“Coworkers are not nice, bosses are not fair, subordinates are not up to par, parents are bossy, children are not what you want, customers are very demanding.”
We have all been through and encountered these problems before. They are problems that destroy feelings, relationships, and worse, may make our work worse or damaged.
“This book says that the root of all problems comes from just one small “box .”
How wide is our perspective?
Many people think that our perspectives or attitudes are broad and may think that they can see other people’s minds well and understand others well. But who knows what we think is good or what we think we understand?
In fact, we may not understand others at all because of our own narrow perspective, which is only in a box that is slightly bigger than us, which is just enough for us to stay in. And worse, if for a long time we do not come out, but instead pull others into the box with us.
This box is like our attitude, our framework, our own experiences. Many times, our thoughts about other people or our judgments about other people are based on this box.
So if we think, understand or view others in our own box, we will stick to our own thoughts, deny that we have problems and blame others instead.
So how do we know if we are in the box or out of the box?
If we all want to explore ourselves, to avoid being in a small box, then read this review article, it will help you understand what a small box is and how you can help you get out of it.
Because in our daily lives, one thing that all of us cannot avoid is meeting people. Starting from the moment we wake up, we will meet our family members, whether it be our father, mother, wife, children, or other members.
And when we step out of the house, we might meet our neighbors. After that, almost half a day, we have to be at work, we have to meet our colleagues. In every second, the relationships that occur, all have things that impress us, that make us live together happily.
But in reality, if the world is not as beautiful as we think, we may encounter things we don’t like or are not satisfied with at different times of the day.
For example, if our mother or wife complains to us that we have piles of worn clothes on the floor, our child comes home late, our co-worker makes mistakes at work, how do we view them? Well, it all depends on our perspective, whether we view them from outside the box or inside the box.
Problematic relationships are caused by the small “box” that surrounds us. When we are in a box, we see ourselves as doing the right thing and find fault by blaming others to justify ourselves. This is to allow others to enter our scary box as well.
As time goes by, relationships become fragile, but it is not the end of all relationships. From the book “How to Get Yourself Out of the Small Box” will teach you how to trick yourself into staying in a box. Why do people get into boxes? And finally, how can you get out of the box?
A world of self-deception called the box
The world we live in every day, we all have to face different things. Problems are one thing that everyone can face frequently, whether it is problems that occur within the family or problems that occur at work. And no matter how successful we are in our careers, we all always have weaknesses.
For example, at work, when we work hard, put in our full effort and dedication to the task, what we get is being criticized by our boss or being criticized negatively by our colleagues.
Or when we are upset with our subordinates at work when they accidentally erase important information that we have written on the whiteboard, which took us several days to figure out. We are very angry and think that our subordinates are the ones who are at fault. When we express our anger, we think that we are doing the right thing. However, if we look at it realistically, we may be the root of the problem in that incident.
So the scariest thing is, “We don’t know what our problem is.”
This is why we are in a “ box ”. When we are in a box, we see others as objects that we do not care about. But what we care about the most is ourselves.
And by staying in the box all the time, we will eventually encounter self-deception, which is like a plague that slowly erodes relationships, causing them to rupture so much that we may never be able to return to the way they were.
How do people get into boxes?
When we start fooling ourselves into creating a box, how do we actually get into the box?
From the book , How to Get Yourself Out of a Small “Box”, it is said that people who can get into a box do so by “betraying ourselves”. Betraying ourselves means that we will do things that are opposite to our own feelings. Sometimes we will do things for others just because our own feelings are greater than the feelings of others.
After that, we will start to see the world in a way that finds various reasons to support the actions that we have done, until we start to see things around us distortedly, as if we are the center of that story and are always in the right. After that, we will immediately start to travel into a box surrounded by 4 walls.
“This is where the problem begins, which comes from our self -deception .”
Self-deception is when we try to deny that we have a problem by distorting our perspective and trying to find reasons to support ourselves or something else as the problem instead, or by blaming other things instead.
Eventually, we will take the habit of being in a box with us everywhere we go, and once we are in the box, we will encourage those around us to come into the box with us. This will cause us and those we invite into the box to continue living in the box, because those people will try to reason with us and collude with us in everything. This is how we successfully enter the box.
An easy example is in the workplace. For example, if we don’t like our boss (even though he may not be who we think he is), we will find people to try to find reasons to make our boss look bad, to persuade other coworkers to hate and dislike our boss with us. If any of our friends believe what we say, that means that they have come down into the box with us.
How can we get out of the box?
This book has analyzed this issue in detail, which is considered the most important point of the whole story. Starting from, if we meet a subordinate who is not good enough or does not have enough ability, in our hearts as a leader, we want this subordinate to be better. The meaning is that we wish well and want to change other people in order to make us out of the box.
But in reality, when we do that, it is like we are stimulating the thing we intend to change even more, which is like provoking others to give you more reasons to be in a box. Sometimes, the subordinates do not need us to help them develop themselves. Or what we do for the subordinates may be done just because we do not want others to see us as a bad boss (doing it because we do not really intend to do it for the subordinates).
So “trying to deal with others” doesn’t help us get out of the box, but rather, it blames others and invites them to be in the box.
“Running away from problems” When we are in a box, the problems that arise are always caused by other people. But in reality, the problems lie within ourselves. However, in some situations, it may be the right thing to do, but it is not enough to provide the answer we need to get out of the box.
“Communication” Even though we try to communicate with softer words to diffuse the situation, it may make everything look better, but we are communicating from a box.
“Using skills” will give us more elegant ways to blame others.
“Changing your own behavior” seems like the most likely solution, but it doesn’t help because we don’t do it with all our heart. We just do it to get it over with.
Finally, the book How to Get Yourself Out of the Small “Box” concludes that, in reality, we can get out of the box if we just stop resisting others and become independent of our thoughts. Stop favoring ourselves and see the people around us as fellow human beings, not as objects. This is the important thing that will allow us to step out of the box and will make every relationship that has started to get worse become better again.
Conclusion
From the book, How to Get Yourself Out of the Small “Box” teaches us that betraying yourself will lead to deceiving yourself (the box). When you are in the box, you cannot focus on the outcome. The influence and success that occur in life are all due to living outside the box. To get out of the box, we must stop resisting others.
“Don’t try to be perfect, but try to be better each day.”
What we can apply in life is not to try to be perfect, but to try to be a better person every day. Don’t try to blame others, but try to push yourself out of the box.
And don’t deny yourself that you’ve never been in a box, but move forward and try to help others without blaming others for their mistakes, without expecting help from anyone, but it should be us who have to try to help others to get out of the “box”.
Price and where can I buy it?
This book, How to Get Yourself Out of the Small “Box”, is a Thai version translated by We Learn Publishing House. It costs 160 baht. It is easy to read. The font is quite large and easy on the eyes. It is suitable for anyone who wants to learn and gain ideas about thinking.
If it is an English version, Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting out of the Box
Available for purchase at leading bookstores nationwide.
Other interesting books can be read at:
Mindset – Can Using Your Mind to Overcome Destiny Really Make You Successful?
