You've heard the term, "thinking outside the box" before, haven't you? Sure you have. Do you want to know where it originated? No? Well, I'm going to tell you anyway. It's actually an old term that didn't gain mainstream acceptance until the mid-90s. It was introduced when some guy, representing the US government, went over to Japan in the 50s to help them restructure as a result of the devastation of World War II and the change in both Japan's government and economy.

What does thinking outside the box mean? It means to disregard, for a time, what you know to be proven and true. It means to have a mind that is open enough to accept possibilities that you haven't even thought of yet. It's a paradigm shift; the set of rules and routines that you're accustomed to can change.

When I mentioned before that I'm retired at the youthful age of 46, I meant retired from the normal type of work everyone is accustomed to. I now treat this blog, and the things that I do in relation to it, as my work. This is the way I decided to think outside the box. The original purpose of this blog was to use it as a journal of my life here in the Philippines, but I soon realized that it could and would be much more than that. As my new place of work, I know that I put many more hours into it than I ever did as a regular employee.

On the subject of work, it's an observed conclusion that the people who work the hardest to accomplish a particular goal are the happiest people. The happiness doesn't occur when they accomplish the goal; the happiness occurs while they are in the process of reaching that goal.

One of my goals is to challenge you to think outside the box. I want you to question everything you know, everything you believe, and to be open to the possibilities that will be presented to you as time progresses. Every time I write something that doesn't quite fit in with your particular paradigm on a particular topic is a challenge that I'm presenting. I encourage each and every one of you to do the exact same thing. In this way, we can all learn to view the information we're receiving from a totally different perspective than the one we have become so accustomed to. I know that I will never reach this goal with all of my readers, but I will be happy while I'm in the process of doing so.

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Blog Appreciation:

It's no secret. I've made in quite clear that I'm not into politics. Rarely do I let myself get involved in anything remotely political. I make exceptions when I know there's more than just a little thought behind the material that I'm reading. This is the case with Edge Media. Every article written is thought-provoking in some way. It's not the same old political commentary that you see at other blogs that cater to the political scene. I recommend you take a look, at least once.