"Think Outside Your Box"

When somebody tells you something do you have presumptions, preconceived ideas, or just picture something in a certain way? You may find out later that they were talking about something totally different than what you thought they were. Here's an illustration I wrote today as an example of this. I have entitled it, "Think Outside Your Box", to which Tim would reply "Delete the box!" But that wouldn't work in this situation. ;) Although this story has some problems, please try to get the main idea.

Think Outside Your Box - September 20, 2008

What you said: You tell them all that you have a box - not defining the shape. (It could be a round hatbox, a heart shaped box, a square box, or any other shape of box)
What they thought: Sue pictures a box of chocolates,
While Little Bear pictures a lego container,
And Sally pictures the cardboard box that the promotional calendars came in.
What you said: You tell them it is a brown box.
What they thought: This doesn't surpise them one bit.
Sue's box is tan and has a dark brown border on it.
Little Bear's lego box is the classic Lego brand shade of brown.
Sally's would never be anything but brown!
What you said: You tell them that this brown box has lots of stuff in it.
What they thought: They all agree.
Sue says to herself, "Yes, the box is full of chocolates..."
While Little Bear thinks, "Full of all kinds of legos!"
And Sally says, "Yes, it came with calendars in it - two hundred of them."
What you said: You tell them that the box has dividers in it-
What they thought: Which they already knew, but hadn't thought of.
"Yes, the box has an upper and lower layer -divided by plastic, and each piece of chocolate is divided from each other by the same.." Sue thinks.
"Yep, one bar across the middle of the Lego box and some smaller removeable ones too." says Little Bear.
"Cardboard dividers - you are right." Sally agrees.
What you said:
You say, "It's my sewingbasket!"
What they thought: And their faces fall--confused, because it isn't what they thought it was.

My aunt Becky said something this summer that was a new thought for me - we humans like association. We like to associate new things/information with something we already know about.

For instance if I were to start talking right now about a church building.. "It's a big church that seats 1000 people; it has red carpet..." You are probably already picturing this church in your mind as you read about it. Right? Usually when I hear something or read something I picture scenes and sometimes I paste several together from places I've been, people I've seen. etc.

By the way, I am sorry that I am so messy in my writing, going from one thought to another without a breath! :) I hope you get the point of this post though.