boxes

When a customer, manager, or anyone tells you to "think outside the box", you must realize one thing: the last thing they want you to do is actually think outside the box.

The actual meaning of the phrase "think outside the box" is much more complex, and should be understood to mean this:

"I have two boxes in my imagination. I am incapable of describing either one adequately.

The first box contains the elements of the status quo which I dislike, and my inscrutable rationale for disliking them. The second box contains an idealistic but even more nebulous concept of how I want things to be. My concept of that ideal is not now, nor can it be, influenced in any way by reality.

I want you to guess what's in the second box, with no useful input or feedback from me."