I wonder why the concept of being boxed in makes all of us so anxious. Why does it bring up all the wrong feelings? I think back to the last time I truly felt boxed in. Maybe it was during COVID, when we were confined to our homes to avoid catching the virus. But the most daunting time was when I first moved to Louisville—alone in broad daylight, surrounded by empty white walls and piles of brown boxes. I felt like the walls were closing in, and the boxes were going to engulf me.
In reality, I wasn’t really boxed in. I had a glass door that led to a gigantic balcony, keys to unlock every door, and a car to drive wherever I wanted. Even with all that freedom and mobility, I still felt trapped. Similarly, I have felt confined in a spacious 4,300-square-foot home—free to walk out anytime, yet held back by family obligations and unspoken rules.
If nothing was restricting me, I know in the bottom of my heart that I wouldn’t have adventurous plans to explore, or a corporate job to apply for, or a business idea to venture into. Even knowing I might not use those unstructured opportunities to achieve tangible goals, I still feel boxed in. It reminds me that the red tapes are all tangled up by me—only me. I want to scream for freedom and the guilt-free opportunity to explore. But oddly enough, when it comes time to execute a plan, I complain about the yellow tape quarantining me within my home’s boundaries.
Isn’t it odd that if we were all free to do whatever we wanted, we would still desire a certain level of rules and boundaries to keep the community civil? Yet those same rules become constraining, violating our freedom to explore our true potential. It reminds me of one of my psychology professors who once asked: would you ever ride a bridge over water without steel wires and cement walls? Yet when we have lanes and boundaries, we sometimes feel restricted or violated. He argued that we all unconsciously desire a certain level of boundaries and schedules to prevent us from falling and failing.
Without restrictions, perhaps I wouldn’t have any plans for adventure at all. Yet, oddly enough, I sometimes want yellow-and-red tape to mark certain boundaries—to contain me within limits. Isn’t it strange how we crave rules and boundaries to keep things civil, but then end up tangled in those very restrictions, longing desperately for freedom and opportunity?
