The original box puzzle dates back to 1914. Draw only four straight lines and connect all the dots without lifting your pen from the paper. (Answer at end of article)
When is the last time you used your imagination to solve a problem or achieve a goal? And I mean really used your imagination?
Kids use their imaginations all the time to do almost everything. Where adults are expert at identifying and solving problems, kids don’t even see them as such. Hence, they live and approach life from a vastly different plane. And it’s refreshing.
They’re more in touch with their dreams. They go about achieving their goals with a mindset of possibility. They could even be considered better at solving problems. Yes, kids lack the refined analytical skills and critical thinking functions that we as adults rely on. But that’s exactly my point. What we’ve got that kids haven’t developed yet is exactly what gets in our way.
We’ve gotten too good at our logical, left-brained functions. When faced with something new (say a goal or task) we set it up as a problem to solve. That way we can analyze things, organize ideas, compare options, make lists, formulate plans, and hypothesize outcomes. We’ve become experts at solving things. At home, at work, and at play. These skills work so well we tend to apply them to everything, even when they don’t work. Sometimes we think ourselves into complete exhaustion! Yet we’re still unable to solve a persistent problem or achieve a long-desired goal, no matter how important.
Then some one comes along and tells us to be creative, use our imagination, or think outside the box. Huh? Wait.. what?! We stop, think for a moment, and interpret that to mean finding even more options, or better somehow different solutions. So we get busy thinking even harder: analyzing, comparing, theorizing, postulating, and formulating ourselves into oblivion. Nothing changes. Nothing’s inspired. Nothing’s different. We’re totally stuck inside the box.
Kids don’t think in that box. They haven’t acquired it yet, so they’re free of all the limitations and restrictions imposed by it. The box suggests squareness and rigidity, constrained and unimaginative thinking. Because they live by their imaginations, kids don’t see things as problems.
Kids perceive things from a right-brained, intuitive place. For them, life is a series of endless possibilities, dreams to realize, and desires to manifest.
What would happen if you approached life in the same manner?
How, living in a mostly left-brained world, can you apply more imagination to your dilemas, your goals and your dreams? Following is a list of what children do with their imaginations. It takes a little practice, but contemplate these and chances are you’ll start to remember some long-forgotten things. Try a few. Get inspired. You may even begin to really Think Different:
Children Pretend.
Kids pretend often, with other kids and even alone by themselves. You can pretend by “Acting As If”. Act as if you’ve already solved the problem or already achieve your goal or dream. What would you do different? How would you conduct yourself? What would you do right now, in this moment, or the next? What would your typical day look like? How would today be? Try taking some time and “acting as if”. Spend a few minutes, a day or even a week like this and observe what positive changes take place.
Children Dream.
Kids spend a lot of time dreaming, imagining things how they really want them. Maybe they live in a castle instead of a four room condo. Maybe they are famous, magicians, sorcerers. How much time do spend dreaming of what you want? To dream, you can set some time aside and use creative visualization. Really craft, create, and imagine the dream, right down to the little details. Try doing this even for just 10 minutes, somewhere you can remain undisturbed and really get lost in it. See what you come up with. Repeat that every day for a week to really get back in touch with the dreamer in you.
Children Imitate.
Tell a child to eat his oatmeal and you may get a frown, a brief protest, or even a refusal. But tell him Spiderman eats it, and well, oatmeal galore! Kids imitate their heroes and people they admire with passion. Who do you admire? Who are your heroes? Many adults don’t have “heroes” anymore. Why not take some time out and identify a few? Try to not to base this on what they have (including achievements) but rather on something they do or how they are. They can even be fictitious. What do admire about them? What would they do in your given situation? How would they approach your goal? Go ahead and emulate them.
Children Invent.
When children face an obstacle they immediately start inventing ways around it. Watch children at play. When an obstacle comes up the inventors come out. They share inventions and try them out. Maybe their ideas aren’t practical, maybe not even possible, but they try them out and invent and invent again. Approach things with a spirit of invention. To do this, don’t worry about what’s possible and what’s not. Suspend practically and allow your ideas to flow untamed for a while. See where they take you.
Children Innovate.
Kids don’t always ask how to do things. They come up with their own ways. They are true innovators. To get back in touch with your spirit of innovation, decide for a moment that you’re not going to worry about the “how” of a situation. If you have an idea, don’t see if others are doing it, or how they did it. How would you do it? What’s your unique take or spin? Adults love how-to guides, manuals, and advice. Let yourself be an innovator. Do things your own way. If you were the one making the how-to guide to solve your problem or achieve your goal, what would it say? See what you come up with before you go looking for the answers to “how” elsewhere.
Children Believe.
Kids do things from the heart. They are filled with hope. They are still connected to the realm where anything is possible, and they put their whole hearts into things. They don’t believe they can’t. To believe again, don’t even focus on what’s impossible, or what you can’t do. Let things be possible, and imagine them as so. See what you discover. Dream it and believe it.. then begin it.
(The answer to the box puzzle above:)
One of the solutions lies in going beyond the boundaries and drawing the lines outside of the box to connect all the dots. Hence, the catch phrase "think outside the box" would be an appropriate hint.
Related Elsewhere:
13 Ways to Spark Intense Creativity
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I loved this post! This is so true. Children don’t see problems, they see possibilities. This is definitely something that most adults could learn from. Thanks for these great tips!
Hi Jay,
Thanks for stopping by! I’m glad you liked it. Kids are totally a source of inspiration for me. Their imaginations are untamed and their curiosity endless. Hanging out with them (especially outdoors) is one of the most rewarding ways to “just be” in the present moment and reconnect with all that’s good. That’s provided that we can let go enough to let them take the lead. It’s amazing what they can teach us!
-Miche
Oh, I agree, I agree, I agree!!!! I have decided that we can learn the answer to everything we seek by just paying attention to kids. They know how to be happy, how to live in the moment, how to try for things without focusing on difficulties or limitations, how to love and accept anyone… I could go on and on.
When I decided to home school my son, I didn’t realize I would be the one doing the learning!
Hi Lisis,
Thanks for visiting! Children are still so connected that spark, that powerful source in life which is magical; they help us reconnect to that when we spend time with them on their terms, not ours To me, they’re all just little pint-sized mystics in their own right!
Cheers to you for home schooling your son.
This is really a great decision. I could go on about how our outdated education model fails our children by killing creativity, kindness, and the innate sense of wonder and curiosity they’re born with. Sadly, the system is still based on a pre-industrial philosophy of churning out workers to make society’s “industrial machine” run smoothly. That’s not to say that there aren’t great teachers out there bucking the trend, but it’s no wonder why after so many years of formal schooling that we really lose touch with our imaginations.
Having taught in higher ed, I put my whole heart into bucking the trend. I know I made a difference to a lot of my students, and that’s what mattered most to me. They were my total inspiration.
Here’s one of my favorite youtube videos about higher education, put together by Kansas University students. They surveyed themselves as part of a cultural anthropology course and made this video. You may have seen it already, but if not, it’s short and worth checking out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o
-Miche
Wow!!! That video is fantastic! Interestingly, I’ve seen two videos today… this one, and the one that’s on Jay’s blog (Validation).
Now I feel SOOOO inspired to help grown ups feel better about themselves by re-connecting with who they were BEFORE life got all serious and structured. I am also even more motivated to help my son retain his natural curiosity and love of learning… perhaps he can share that with other kids as well.
THANK YOU for sharing this with me… it brought tears to my eyes!!!
It frightening to think about how much time we spend thinking about a problem which may not even be a problem. One thing that I really love about kids is their ability to not to let things bother them too much. They may be upset for the moment but they move on so quickly that the problems just fade away.
I agree that adults are professional problem solvers and that is what we spend much of our time doing. We box ourselves into thinking in a very systematic, planned, and calculated way. It’s the people that think outside the box that change the world. I can’t help but think of the Apple ad that told us to Think Different. (Check out the ad http://tinyurl.com/2g7geb ) The problem solvers solve problems, but those who dream, invent, and innovate are truly the ones that change the world.
“kids don’t see things as problems”, what a great point. Kids will write up an i want list quicker than you can turn off the television. They don’t put limits on what they can be, do , or have. We need to learn more about how children feel they can do anything they want, by applying their principles our lives.
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Some great comments and I’ve been waiting to get free to catch up here!
@Lisis: Glad to have inspired you! That video is an eye-opener and pretty telling about the state of higher ed (and education in general). I have more like them, I’ll have to share them sometime!
@Jeremiah: Thanks for stopping by! Love that Apple video, too… I’d rather be a “crazy one” any day of the week… “The problem solvers solve problems, but those who dream, invent, and innovate are truly the ones that change the world.” Very well put!!
@jonathanfigaro
“I want” lists are probably the first lists kids learn how to make, at the prodding of adults, of course, telling them “to write it all down”. And boy, do they get enthusiastic about it! We could re-learn a thing or two from them by making a few “I want” lists instead of so many “to do” lists!
Cheers,
Miche
I always tell my kids to think outside the box. One of my kids has the most bizarre way of thinking imaginable – she’ll zoom off into the wild blue yonder but somehow, always come up with the perfect solution nobody else would dream of. I hope she retains that forever.
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A great blogpost somehow reminding me of the Beginner’s mind (or is that just me…. ) Kids are great in teaching adults to slow down and just take a good hard honest look to what’s going on and what’s the real problem…
Are there ever problems or only challenges….
Challenge a kid and they’ll more likely than not make it into a contest finding ever more resourceful ways of winning the game. Probably finding ways that any adult would have never thought of just because it’s outside of the box. It’s not in the standard package of sollutions we build in our lives. It’s new… Now only if adults could invent new stuff as well… get back to the beginner’s mind and enjoy the fresh perspective looking at that evil adult prison of the box..
Hi Christiaan, welcome, and thanks for commenting. I think so, too. When you give a children a challenge they often make it “fun” to find solutions, and they use their imaginations to do so. They tend to use their imaginations in a very positive way, more often than adults do. There is so much we can learn by spending more time with them!