All in the game yo!
Somehow I have this sense that life is malleable. While certain laws of physics, society, and religion will give us a general framework with in which to operate, everything else is negotiable — especially for things that don’t make sense.
This would make me a naive idealist.
Idealist enough to think we can create a utopic environment if we just tweaked the right things and negotiated with the right people. And, by this, I do not mean a pure utopia, just a society and culture that operates smoothly. You know, just eliminate all the bureaucracy and stupid from the world.
How hard could that be?
Now, at the same time, I know that this is clearly labeled as “out of the box thinking.” And I’m fine with that.
“I know that I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.” ~ Lennon
The problem is, I don’t know where the box is? I don’t even see those limitations. Sometimes I’ll trip when I cross the line, but most of the time I never know the line is there.
This annoys people.
Most people, for whatever reason (eg; people pleasing, insecurity, fear, choleric, etc.), do their best to always stay on the right side of the box. They color in the lines, and they don’t doubt their place in the larger corporations of life. They come to work, work hard at not making mistakes (and therefore not giving any indication of their existence), and then never make a difference.
There are others, like myself, who don’t worry about making mistakes and are bored with the monotonous repetition of what most would call “work” — or, “my job.” We’re always looking for ways to make our job better, easier, and more efficient.
Maybe it’s because I’ve been listening to futurists my whole life. They told me we’d have more leisure time, work less, and spend more time working on the big issues of life. So, if someone gives me a job that would take most people 50 hours to do, I’ll find a way to automate tasks in order to get that down to 30 hours. Then I’ll continue to work 50 hours a week — spending the remaining 20 (that I carved out of my meaningless stuff) and focus making life better for all involved.
But, however, as we dream, tweak, change, adapt, and innovate we cause others to be disrupted. They, the first group, doesn’t like this. They react in two ways” a) they withdraw, stall, and avoid; or b) they get aggressive. Sadly, we creatives often cross out of our boxes and into the boxes of the box-makers, and then all manner of chaos and anger breaks out.
If I knew where the lines are, I’d make more conscious choices as to whether I want to cross the line or not. But it’s almost as if I’m color blind to the lines of my box, your box, or societies boxes in general.
My personality type is that of a lion, but I’ve learned to tame that lion so I’m not offending others or breaking a myriad of society’s unwritten rules. I end up quietly drifting in the shadows, not quite living up to my giftedness and potential. When I do happen to open my mouth to express thoughts, it often sounds like roaring, and people get scared. Ugh.
One of my former overseers said people perceived me as a tiptoeing lion, and that always scares people. Consequently, caught between being true to my strengths, weaknesses, and experiences, I feel like a caged lion, trapped in an invisible box and retreating into a quiet world of solitude.
But somehow I don’t feel this when I play board games. If I play a game of Monopoly, or Trouble with my family, I don’t feel a need to change the game, create new rules, or revise the process of playing the game. It is what it is. Now, I do have a choice of whether to play or not — where life and career are often circumstantial and there is no real escape.
When playing a board game there is often a group discussion of which game to play, and who will play. If they pick a game I don’t like, I don’t have to play. And I can heavily influence whether we play a fun (to me) game, or a fun (to them) game. But in life, I can’t opt out — very easily, and my career is often not too flexible at this later stage in life.
However, if I could choose to play the game of life accepting that the rules are set, like in a board game, maybe I could accept it as complete and in no need of tweaking.
Now, where’s that box, I need to climb back inside of it and read the rules on the box top.
