10 Stages of Working Within the Box
1. Learn the letters and number
This is the basic at Nursery and Primary Level of Education
2. Learn fundamental concept and to cram, recite off hand on a specific date and time.
The junior high school takes care of this
3. Learn to follow instructions
Built on the success (or otherwise) of stage 2, in senior high, the ability to follow instructions and recreate basic concept or procedure is tested
4. Adopt a specific field and learn to follow complex instructions and think within certain defined structure or body of knowledge.
This is the tertiary education level
5. Be certified.
When stage 4 is completed successfully (or otherwise), the products of this educational structure are categorized into level of adherence. And the certificate stands as a proof that if given specific instructions (in a specific body of knowledge), the bearer has the ability to carry out tasks as instructed and as in the manual (approved textbook) and code of conduct.
6. Be employed.
A test is administered to confirm stage 4 and further, if proven to have the ability to handle routine work within certain rules and working conditions, the door of being employed is open. A stipend is given to keep you surviving but never enough to make you independent.
7. Be promoted.
After serving long enough to have a good knowledge of the system or your ideas are “innovative” but within the box, additional responsibility will be added which is refer to as promotion. This is done at intervals.
8. Management and Leadership
Depending on your ability and capability to carry out instructions and how well you have been conditioned to strive within that system, you will be given an elevated responsibility to conditioned others. To lead and train them on how the system works and, of course, how to follow instructions and work within the box in hope of better benefits.
9. Retirement
After a long while, your capacity to follow instructions is considered not optimal, so is your energy level. Time to dispose of you – Retirement. A package is given you to keep the others motivated till the end of the line. After retirement, you realised that you have been conditioned within a certain system which was your worldview and that there were different systems working perfectly which you never knew. The knowledge you try to share with the real world is considered outdated and orthodox.
10. Blend in or die
Either use knowledge transfer and blend in with the real world or become stuck and rot away. Ironically, those who were considered stubborn strive better than the faithful hound.
BREAKING AWAY AND FINDING A NEW PATH
Conditioned into a system to learn how things work and keeping it working as in the manual is the order. Non-adherence to the structured method of instructions or knowledge is not tolerated. Innovations outside the box is unacceptable.
Innovations that change the way we do things are never attain from this systematic structure.
To invent or manifest and idea, require breaking away from the structure.
1. The Early Birds
Some break away early at Stage 4. These belong to 2 classes;
(a.) Those that had early exposure to knowledge and technology and could afford to finance mistakes in the learning curve. Eg Bill Gates
(b.) Those that were frustrated by the discrimination in the system of did not have the resources to acquire the structured education. They had to think their way out.
2. Matured and Enlightened
These categories break away mostly at Stage 7. Fully educated and working brilliantly. But they either (a.) wanted something more or (b.) they felt something is not right and certain idea cannot happen within that structure, so they needed another path.
3. The Late Comers
These categories are accomplished in their field at Stage 9 and they learn that something in their field can be taken out of the box and relate with another field. They are the academicians and Nobel Prize laureate. They are recognised and celebrated because their ideas are less outrageous, being more fundamentally structured within the already established system of knowledge.
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