Think Outside the Box

The expression "think outside the box" is used a lot these days, but most of the time the thinking is only on the edge of the box and not really outside it.  Today, I thought outside the box, and I hope that I accomplished my goal.  But first a little back story.

As I was finishing graduate school 23 years ago, the deck on the back of our house decided it was almost time to collapse.  We hired a contractor, who informed us of code requirements, as we designed the replacement. The deck of our home was probably the most used room of our home if you count waking hours.  Making it just what we wanted was important. 

Because I am pretty short, I wanted to make sure that I could see over the rails, and the way the code is usually interpreted the top rail would have hit right at eye level for me.  That just wasn't going to cut if for me.  One nice spring Sunday afternoon, we sat on the deck, playing with the rules of the code.  Our goal was to find some combination that met all the rules, but allowed me to see over the deck.  Finally, we came up with an answer.  We consulted our contractor. He agreed that we met all the requirements. Eventually, the city inspector also agreed.  Our deck rails just looked different than most others.

The reason that I tell that story is that for two days every time I thought about a current dilemma, the picture of us on the deck, playing with the rules 23 years ago kept coming to mind.  Since I probably haven't thought about that endeavor for 22 years, it seemed odd to me--odd enough that I couldn't let go of it, but didn't really know what to do with it.

My current dilemma has to do with the rules of a writing contest that I've been preparing to enter.  About a week ago, I discovered a flap on the web about the rules of the contest.  They appeared to take the rights to publish and/or change and publish works that were not winners; not only that but entrants appeared to be giving up the right to publish their own work if it had been submitted.  Of course, the winner had the prize, but if an entrant lost, he or she would lose the rights to their work with no compensation. Two attorney friends advised against entering.

I was 95% of the way to deciding not to enter the contest, but when I was meditating this morning, I kept getting the picture of the deck-rail planning project and hearing "Read what's on other websites." I spent a couple hours this morning reading several websites where people were in a stew about the contest.  Several had "we could do this..." and "we could do that..." suggestions.  None of them seemed to be good solutions to me.

Literally falling backward on my couch at mid-day, I contemplated the right course of action, but every time I did so I thought about the two obvious choices: 1) enter and lose rights or 2) don't enter and lose the opportunity.  As I lay there, that picture of deck planning popped into my head yet again. "What does the deck rail have to do with anything?" I thought. Almost the second the question passed through my consciousness, I knew the answer.  I should do what we did with the rails: 1) know what I wanted in the end (enter without losing rights) rather than what I didn't want (either lose rights or lose opportunity) and 2) figure out how to meet the rules. 

Playing with the suggestions of several bloggers, each of whom had part of the answer, I think I figured out how to meet all of the rules without losing rights to something I might want to publish.  Then I wrote feverishly, working almost nine hours in the zone until I was bleary eyed, hungry and thirsty. Off my entry went.

I do not know if I will win.  As much interest as the contest has stirred, I expect I will have a lot of competition, and some of it appears to be from quite experienced professional writers.  What seems more important to me at this point is what I learned along the way, coming in the form of a memory about thinking outside the box.

In the short bit since I finished my submission, I've been contemplating where else in my life that I might be served by looking at rules in a new way.  One of the leaders with whom I have been working recently said to me , "Often rules are used to tell people what they can't do; I'd like to use them to tell us what we can do," emphasizing the "can." 

I think this is the lesson of thinking outside the box: let the constraints fall away and ask "What can we do?"