Thinking Outside of the Box by Whitney

Thinking Outside of the Box by Whitney - October 2018 Scholarship Essay

Thinking outside of the box, simply put, means to go beyond what the requirements are of a certain task and being creative while doing so. In my creative writing class, we were always encouraged to think outside of the box. Some activities we would do to open our minds would be creating a tower with marshmallows and spaghetti noodles, drawing what a certain word meant to us, and looking at paintings to interpret them. These activities made us transfer from the "technical" part of our brain to the "creative" side. In doing these activities and opening up this side of our brain, we were able to think more outside of the box in our writing; not everything we wrote about had to be realistic or technical. We were free to write about whatever we wanted to.
Thinking outside of the box allows you to solve real-world problems in a creative way that may be more effective. For example, if someone were to be stuck in the mud in their truck, the technical way would be to pull it out. This would require another vehicle with strong torque. On the other hand, we can use the creative side of our brain and tie a piece of wood to the tire, allowing the tire to have something to roll on to get itself out.
To many others and me, thinking outside of the box means to use the more creative side of our brains to create solutions for issues we may be caught up in, or it could mean we were simply more creative with our writing for an assignment we have been given. Either way, thinking outside of the box is important for everyone to try to experience, for it will open your mind to new things you have never thought about.