Get Out Of The Box ‘Carefully’

In this age of social media, the ease of sharing information, misinformation and disinformation is huge, the rewards of being educated due to better access to content can be phenomenal and the price of being too lazy to find the truth before taking action is too high.

Decades ago, our major access to information about places was to travel to those places and until we do, we could only use the limited sources of information that we have. It’s no wonder that there is a Nigerian proverb that says, ‘anyone who hasn’t been to another person’s farm will claim their father’s farm is the biggest.’ This simply means your beliefs, values and words are determined by what you know and see.

Angelina Jolie put this in another way when she said, “If you don’t get out of the box you’ve been raised in, you won’t understand how much bigger the world is.”  

This applies to many areas of our lives from the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the languages we speak, the natural resources around us to the music, arts and culture that we are exposed to. Ultimately it applies to the value systems we subscribe to as well.

With the boundless opportunities through the access to information, the duty of care falls on us to determine how and when we leverage these opportunities. There is so much information that we can spend all day, week after week and month after month scrolling without increasing in knowledge. We can get so distracted with the technology that we lose sight of our immediate surroundings.

On a recent journey on the local tram, I experienced this on multifaceted levels. Going to work in the morning, I observed that I was the only person that wasn’t on her phone. As I looked round, I wondered how many of us would notice if someone was in distress or troubled, people shoved forward to make room for others to get on to the tram without so much as a glance to check whether they made enough room or not.

A young lady next to me was scrolling through TikTok videos without finding or choosing one to enjoy and for an entire 30 minutes, it felt as though she was mindlessly setting herself up for disappointment. There was too much and nothing was good enough.

On the way back home, an older man complimented a young man standing next to me on the pair of trousers he had on, so they struck a conversation which I joined in. It turned out that the young man owned the company that sold these products. By the end of a short journey, both of us left with a friend’s and family 20% discount code which he shared with us along with his website details.

The young man was delighted to get his products noticed and we were happy to get the discount codes and all of these happened because we made conscious decisions to not be on our phones but instead to find ways to connect with those around us.

It seems to me that we have gone full circle from being in a box due to lack of access to places, people and information, having access to all of these, to being distracted by the level of access on gadgets that makes us lose sight of the bigger picture – the human connection.

The question is, now that you have the tools to get out of the box you were raised in, how are you using those tools?

Are you educating yourself?

Are you growing in critical thinking and emotional intelligence?

Are you growing in ideas and leveraging opportunities to connect?

Are you distracted by the tools?

Do you use the tools for the right purposes?

Are you leveraging the opportunities to collaborate globally?

Are you losing yourself in the process?

Are your values and belief systems being eroded?

Are you embracing or denying the things that really matter?

Content creators need your attention and time but you only have so much of both to give without negatively impacting your wellbeing and your own goals.

The world is so much bigger than any of us could ever imagine and it is important to get out of any constraining boxes to explore what’s out there but we must be wise about how we do this.

Get out of your box doesn’t mean forget the values and cultures you were raised with; it doesn’t mean losing sight of your own identity, culture, language, food and clothing to adopt that of others, it doesn’t even mean you must agree with everything you experience. Just because it’s out there doesn’t mean it’s right for you, true or better than yours.

We must learn to discern what is good to adopt, what is wise to reject and above all else protect our true identity. We must learn to love ourselves enough to not allow others to determine our sense of self worth and dignity. We must choose to not let someone else define our values based on their own personal preferences, whims or choices which can be as fleeting as smoke blown into the winds.

Thanks for reading and sharing my posts. Have a fabulous week.