Breaking out of the box

2025-08-29

598 words, ~4 min reading time

Boxes are everywhere, and it is too easy and quite comfortable to put yourself in a set of boxes that somehow seem to fit. Even funnier, other people put you in boxes – whether you like it or not – starting with your birth. Your gender, your nationality, sometimes even your religion. That is something that will not change. And for some (at least to me) unknown reasons, people like putting you into boxes, to label you, to categorise you. And, following that, to make assumptions about you and to put expectations on you. You cannot change that. Of course, you can fight the boxes others put you in. And while some will stop, others will continue to do so openly or behind your back, consciously or unconsciously. While that does not mean that you should stop rejecting the boxes you are not comfortable with, realising the borders of your possibilities to change the opinion that others have on you may help you.

In the end, you can just ignore the labels that others put on you. Yes, depending on who you are, this is potentially very difficult. It needs time and (personal) growth to do so. But to live freely, it is of utmost importance to learn what you are doing because others expect it from you and what you are doing because you truly want to.

But this is not the most tricky, most difficult, most challenging aspect. It took me years (perhaps even decades) to apprehend that the boxes I put myself in are the most dangerous and that it has to be my goal to break out of them.

Because this set of self-assigned boxes comes with a large number of expectations. Expectations you put on yourself. And contrary to expectations from others, you cannot run away from what you anticipate from yourself. These are expectations you are trying to fulfil and that sometimes are just not fulfillable. Because you are not in control of all the circumstances that affect you and your life. Thus, it is impossible to satisfy all expectations associated with the labels you try to assign to yourself. In the end, it is an endless chase to meet everything required to comply with ever-changing categories. Depending on the person you are, this will either slowly break your motivation in general or in a certain field or be your entry ticket into a depression. Neither is recommendable. Both should be avoided.

Generally defined labels (i.e. by the society at large or more specific groups or circles) you put on yourself will make you follow goals defined by others. Goals that are contradictory to your dreams and wishes. Of course, it is upon you to decide which is more important. This is, at its core, the old question of your purpose on earth. For me, it is certainly more important to find and follow my own purpose.

Surely it's not easy to discover and stick to your own dreams, wishes, or purpose. But instead of having a piece of paper with a bunch of labels which I would regularly check just to realise I don't fit in any of them, I'm trying to establish a list of personal values. And I can regularly reflect whether my actions, my attitude and my next steps align with these.

Therefore, I realise more and more that there is only one label I can associate myself with: "creative being". Everything beyond that would restrict me more than it would help me, and I would set myself expectations that I neither can nor want to fulfil.