Month: September 2008

By Mark E. Smith

We need to think outside of the box. If you’ve been around any sort of business environment – or, even pop-culture – you’ve surely heard that expression, one used by countless management coaches and motivational speakers for decades. Of course, what thinking outside of the box means is using creativity and originality to find new solutions, ones that others presumably haven’t found.

Interestingly, the term thinking outside of the box is said to have mainly originated through corporate coaching at Walt Disney Corporation in the late 1960s, based on the nine-dot puzzle, in which the goal is to connect nine dots by drawing four straight, continuous lines without lifting the pencil. The key is that the puzzle is only solved by connecting the dots and drawing a shape that voids the puzzle’s initial “box” shape – hence, thinking outside of the box.

Despite the catch-phrase appeal of thinking outside of the box, the way that most people view the motivational concept – arguably, including Walt Disney – is the completely wrong . Literally, the nine-dot puzzle requires us to think inside the box – that is, we’re given a specific situation, and to solve the puzzle, we must work with the constraints of what we have, exactly nine dots. Sure, we must unconventionally connect the dots to solve the puzzle, but we’re still only working with what we literally have, nine dots.

When we live with disability, thinking inside of the box is among our best strategies toward successful living, where we simply make the most of what we literally have. Indeed, some can think outside of the box, hoping for a cure, or wishing to turn back time. However, such thinking that’s outside of our realities – beyond our nine dots – is truly futile. After all, we can’t work with what we don’t have.

However, to the contrary, when we think inside of the box – that is, when we look at the “dots” that we actually have, and work with them to our fullest potentials – we can then create true progress, from solving puzzles to succeeding in every aspect of our lives. Quite simply, thinking inside of the box is when we recognize the literal resources that we have, and then we work them to their most fruitful, advantageous outcomes: I may have cerebral palsy, but within those limitations, I have the ability to excel in business, to write and communicate at an impacting level, to live as a role model for my daughter, and on and on. That is, thinking inside of the box allows us to focus on our true potentials, no matter framed by disability, and succeed with the inherent capacities that we have.

Countless times, I’ve sat talking with someone – someone with a lifelong disability, or a recent injury, or a progressive condition – and I’ve heard him or her thinking outside of the box, longing for a cure, wanting to change the way life has gone, wishing for the impossible. Meanwhile, inside the box – that is, within the person’s true daily life – there’s a wealth of potential and blessing, from a great intellect, to a supportive family, to some physical abilities. Yet, the person is so stuck on thinking outside of the box, that he or she has no capacity to value all that life has truly provided within its seeming limitations. In this way, thinking outside of the box simply stifles one’s potential for growth and joy in life, whereas, in contrast, thinking inside of the box allows us to realize our full potentials. The simple truth is this: Working with what we have, to our best abilities, is how we succeed – disability or otherwise.

I volunteer one night per week as a credit counselor, helping others get their financial lives back under control. What’s striking to me is that the vast majority of consumers I’ve worked with initially believed that their debt was due to not having enough money: If I only had more money, I wouldn’t be in debt, is often said. However, as we’ve listed their incomes and expenditures, it usually becomes clear that they make more than enough money to live comfortably, but that they’ve simply been spending more than they’ve made – or, as I like to say, their wants have been larger than their wallets. In this way, much of their financial woes aren’t based on income, but based on perspective, where their thinking outside of the box – charging big-screen TVs while truly having small-screen budgets! – has lead them directly into debt. However, what’s surprising to many is that in helping clients get their finances under control, there’s no magic or skill to it – as financial counselors, we simply show them how to live within their budgets, or how to think inside of the box. The fact is, financially-secure, successful people simply don’t spend more than they earn – that is, they think inside of the box. Again, there’s no question that simply using precisely what we have to its fullest potential works every time, in money, life, and disability.

When it comes to the success of thinking inside of the box that we call disability, I’m reminded of a friend of mine who lived for flying. In fact, he was an airline pilot with a major airline for 15 years, working his way up to captain. One night, while walking through London during a layover at Heathrow airport, he was robbed at gunpoint, and as he tried to get away from his attacker, he was was shot in the back, resulting in quadriplegia. By any account, his ability to captain airliners was over.

Yet, rather than giving up on the career that he loved, my friend found the value of looking inside of the box that he now had. No, he couldn’t professionally captain an airliner ever again – that was way too far out of the box. However, with all of his education, training, knowledge, and personality, he realized that he could pursue his passions for flying in a new way, working within his present abilities – inside of his box – and he became a ground instructor, teaching young pilots in the classroom.

If there’s one motto that we should live by, it’s to think inside of the box. No, not all of our boxes are equal, where some have nine dots in their boxes, while some of us have fewer. Yet, if we forgo any impossible wishful thinking or any stifling regret, and merely utilize the full potentials that we each truly have in our lives, opportunity becomes boundless. Let us think inside of the box, fully valuing all that we have, and make the most of our dots – our lives – each day.

By Mark E. Smith

I remember my first day in San Francisco State University’s creative writing program years ago. It was a big deal to get accepted into it, and as I sat in my first class, I was undoubtedly surrounded by some of the best and brightest – especially since now they’re running magazines, managing newspaper syndicates, and publishing best-selling novels. But, on that first morning, rather than an inspired welcome by our department’s head celebrating our admittance, we were told that we were merely legacies of the past, void of originality, that all worth writing had already been written, that we were kidding ourselves if we thought that we could contribute anything but mimicry to the literary canon.

Of course, I knew that the department head was just trying to shake us up, seeing if we had the guts to put ourselves out there when it came to trying to find our individual voices in a craft so heavily populated with historical talent. However, her words stuck with me, not relating to writing, but to disability experience: There’s nothing original about succeeding with disability – it’s already been widely accomplished, and there’s nothing intrinsically unique about any one individual’s experience. And, there’s tremendous inspiration in that reality.

This year, I had among my most amazing summers. No, I didn’t take an exquisite vacation – in fact, I’m not sure that I even took a day off of work. Rather, what made my summer so extraordinary was that I was on the road almost every weekend, jumping in the van or on a plane on Friday nights or Saturday mornings, shooting off to remarkable events, speaking in front of groups and having one-on-one dinners with intriguing people, all relating to disability experience in some way. And, the life stories that I witnessed along the way were emblematic of so many ordinary folks simply succeeding with disability:

A 40-something mother, who likely won’t experience another summer, told me that she’s using her rapidly-progressing ALS to teach her children about the joys of living, not the sorrows of dying.

A young lady with spina bifida explained to me that she’s been on over 20 job interviews in her field this year, all to no avail. When I asked if she was getting disillusioned in her job search, she smiled and said, “No, I’m just getting warmed up.”

A gentleman who dove off of a dock, into three feet of water, resulting in paralysis, told me that when he came out – of the water, of the rehab, of the depression – he found himself sober and better for it for the first time in twenty years.

A six-year-old girl with cerebral palsy told me that she can’t wait to receive her new power wheelchair. And, when I asked what she was going to first do with it, she replied, “I gunna dance with my sisters.”

It’s amazing how when you get out there and meet people with disabilities, of all ages and backgrounds, you realize that so many are living successful lives, a contrast to statistics or bummed-out posts on Internet message boards. What’s more when you delve deeper, getting to know those living successfully with disability, a pattern emerges to their success: There’s no magic, talent, or originality to it. Living successfully with disability is simply intrinsic to our humanity.

No, I’m not saying that everyone draws upon their capacity to thrive while living with disability. In fact, some entirely convince themselves that disability is destroying their lives, that their self-pity and bitterness is completely justified, while still others have misaddressed psychological or emotional conditions that prevent disability acceptance or optimism, as well. Yet, their defeated rhetoric manifests itself all the same:

When you live with ALS, every tick of the clock means that you have one less minute to live – that makes living with hope and optimism impossible.

When every job interviewer shuts the door on you because you use a wheelchair, it’s impossible to continue.

Why should I stop drinking? Since my accident, I’ve got nothing left to live for.

I wish I wasn’t in a wheelchair, so I could dance like the other kids.

Of course, none of the people who I remember so clearly from this summer took such self-pity routes, and rightfully so. Again, if you really get at he heart of disability experience, taking the negative route goes against our humanity. From birth, we’re wired with tremendous survival instincts, and when we face challenges, we rise to the occasion. I think of the flooding throughout the southern U.S. in recent years where people hustled to prepare for storms, rode them through, and lost almost everything in the process. Yet, with little more than the clothes on their backs, they’ve had tremendous optimism toward rebuilding their lives. What we see time and time again is that we are indomitable survivors, where resilience proves itself as the core of who we are.

Now, I know that rebuilding a house or even an entire town after flooding doesn’t equate to living with a profound disability. However, my point is, we all face storms; but, more importantly, we all have the innate ability to weather them, riding them with grace and dignity no matter how they impact our lives. In this way, there’s nothing original about living successfully with disability, as people accomplish it everyday, moving forward with positivity, dignity, and resilience – the very capacities we’re born with.

This realization is so important because it allows us the clarity needed to pull ourselves out of the self-pity trap. When one looks at those who successfully live with disability as exceptions to oneself, it simply serves as a justification for one to continue living in defeat. However, once we realize that successfully living with disability is, in fact, commonplace, we’re forced to ask ourselves a question of ultimate accountability: Many others are succeeding with disability, why aren’t I?

And, it’s at that point where we can then stop looking to outside factors as excuses, and start looking to ourselves for solutions, where we actively shift from self-pity to empowerment. In this light, when we find ourselves feeling depressed or defeated, we then know to seek support from peers, counselors, doctors, and pastors because we realize that disability, itself, simply should not be defeating us – that is, there’s work to be accomplished, success to be achieved, and we must get to it.

Interestingly, I asked the mother with ALS how she so optimistically focuses on living during a stage when medically she’s withering, whether she thought that her successful outlook was unique to her or something that we all share? “I’m going to die once,” she told me, “but, till then, I get to live every day. Only a fool would stop the celebration of life early, no matter the circumstance.”

What a beautifully unoriginal thought – unoriginal in the way that we can all practice her outlook, and live every day successfully, with disability or otherwise.