Recently I came across a guest blog I wrote in 2019. Reading it I realised it was still relevant and decided to update it.
Much of what I have done for the last several years centres on celebrating the individuality of people and of assisting them to make the most of this uniqueness.
Sometimes this seems to be a bit like King Canute trying to turn the tide as one sees a world where conformity seems to be heralded at every turn. Whether it is how we are educated, what we should think or what we should do, being part of the crowd seems to be the established norm.
However, as so often happens, a couple of things have occurred recently that serve to convince me that continuing to put people into neat boxes is wrong and that it is important that I continue what I do.
In a world where so much is superficial and where instant opinions seem to be formed with little thought, the concept of putting people in boxes may be convenient but is totally misleading.
If one looks up the definition of ‘box’ in the dictionary then we learn that it is a rigid structure that is designed to contain something. What a box doesn’t do is allow any freedom for the contents.
Phrases such as ‘being boxed in’ serve only to confirm the restrictive nature of boxes. At the same time the tendency of boxes to hide the contents assumes that all contents are the same and that there are no individual items within the box.
For years governments have failed to find a one size fits all solution to homelessness probably because they are ‘put in the same box’ as people that are lazy and should go and get a job. Most people don’t even stop and wonder what happened in their life to get them to that state or how they could begin to get out of it. Indeed, the homelessness are often put in the same as the mental health problems of youth who are put into the ‘lazy, pull yourself together’ box.
I have just finished judging my annual Breakthrough Award for start-ups from the creative subjects at my old university. When I first saw what turned out to be the winning entry, I saw someone using her three years of textile studies to sit at home and make cuddly toys.
However, as soon as I started her interview, my view quickly changed. Here, like any other start up, was a business that had done thorough research, had identified a clear market, had developed excellent marketing strategies, had come up with a unique way of identifying emotion in her product and had come up with a clear alternative to the traditional selling process.
Moreover, this business was specifically targeting those young people with mental health problems. So, I had found a young person who was trying to assist with a problem that many older people ignore. By making each product custom made she also recognised that mental health problems in the young cannot be put in a box.
The second confirmation of my belief in the need to look at individuals rather than as neatly arranged boxes came when I spoke at a conference about entrepreneurship for well-qualified migrants.
Not only was I impressed by the response to the training programmes for migrants; it also highlighted for me the dangers of putting this group into a box.
Europe has seen a massive upheaval in the political scene because of what is observed to be a migrant crisis. Again, what this does is to put all migrants into the same box.
What the conference showed was that many of these migrants that are fleeing war and persecution are doing so, not because they want to, but because they must.
Moreover, many of these migrants are highly educated and could be of great value to the societies where they now live. However, by putting them in a box, they end up doing menial jobs to survive and their knowledge is wasted.
It also got me thinking and realising that migration is not a one direction thing. Despite the Western World’s attempts to limit migration, the western world is quite ready to participate in their own migration.
Most white Americans can be traced back to European migrants and, most other parts of the world have European migrants as well. However, unlike those travelling towards the West, we prefer to call ourselves ‘expats’!
I happen to be an immigrant, having decamped to Turkey fifteen years ago. Ten years after that I also decided to split my time between Turkey and Malaysia, and so became a double immigrant! But, of course, we find it uncomfortable to label ourselves that way as it may have a negative connotation.
These things have convinced me that, however much the world tries to rationalise their box mentality, I am right to think of people differently.
If people must put others in boxes, we must make sure that the box does not become a coffin for opportunity, and we must see it as a box of chocolates with a multiplicity of flavours only fulfilling their potential when taken out of the box.
But I still believe that the box is something that needs to be banned if we are to unlock the potential of all human beings.
