Overview
I read this book because a friend recommended it to me.
- Friend: It’s a book about improving human relationships. Actually, the person I was arguing with gave it to me.
- Me: What?
- Friend: They said something like, “I think you need this book.”
- Me: The person you were fighting with gave you Getting Out of the Box?
- Friend: Yeah.
- Me: They’re making fun of you, right? lol
- Friend: That’s what I thought at the time lol
I’ll write a summary and some impressions.
Summary
This is a book about how to solve problems in human relationships. The main story follows Tom, who has taken a management position at a large company called Zagrum. His bosses—Bud, Kate, and Lou—teach him about the mindset required for that role.
- According to his bosses, Tom has a problem and is not yet suitable for a management position at Zagrum.
- The problem is that Tom is “in the box.”
- “In the box” is of course a metaphor. It means a state where someone treats other people’s needs and desires as less important.
- In other words, a state where someone does not see others as real people, but instead treats them like objects.
- This state is harmful for business.
- In reality, everyone has desires. But to believe that one’s own desires are more important, a person must justify themselves.
- And to justify oneself, the other person must be wrong.
- As a result, people who look down on others start to hope for others’ failures or mistakes in order to justify themselves. They hide information, lose initiative, and stop wanting to participate.
- This is harmful for business.
- This state is also harmful for families.
- Tom, Bud, Kate, Lou… all the characters in the story had problems in their family relationships, or still have them.
- Some saw their wives as uncooperative people. Others saw their children only as targets to scold.
- But these attitudes were also results of self-justification. Because self-justification requires the other person to be wrong, other people’s flaws start to look bigger than they really are.
- Worse, this attitude spreads. Both sides begin to justify themselves. Even though everyone wants peace in the family, they end up deepening the gap between each other.
- Once Tom realizes this, he discovers that it actually feels good to treat others as real people. At first he thought that considering other people’s feelings would only create extra work. But in fact, he did not feel that it made things more troublesome. When he saw others as real people, doing something for them became a joy.
- But is it possible to stay “outside the box” all the time (treating both our own needs and others’ needs equally, and continuing to see others as real people)?
- In fact, thinking that way itself is the method for staying “outside the box.”
- Thinking “I might be wrong” is the opposite of self-justification.
- Unlike before, thinking “I might be wrong” no longer feels like a threat. Instead, it becomes something that brings relief.
Impressions
- The title of the first chapter of this book is “There’s Something Wrong with You.” So when the first chapter of a book given to you by someone you were arguing with is titled “There’s Something Wrong with You,” that’s incredibly annoying lol. It made me laugh right away.
- To be fair, I should add that the person my friend argued with is actually a very gentle person. They recommended the book out of kindness, not sarcasm. Now that there are no hard feelings, my friend can joke about it like in the conversation above.
- Well… basically, this book is about the importance of critical thinking. If I summarize the book in one sentence, it would be something like this: “When critical thinking frees you from self-justification, you naturally start respecting other people’s desires, and relationships improve both in private life and at work.”
- It was quite a good read. Of course, it contains ideas that make you think, “Yes, of course—I already know that and try to practice it in daily life.” But hearing the same goal expressed in someone else’s words is helpful. It increases the clarity of the goal and makes it easier to practice. It’s like memorizing English vocabulary: encountering the same idea many times is effective.
Other thoughts.
- In the past, someone once told me, “You don’t respect me.” This book describes a similar situation.
- Bud’s wife said to him, “To you, I’m just a troublesome burden.”
- Bud later realized how little attention he had paid to what his wife actually wanted him to do.
- Honestly, I understood that feeling. When someone says “You don’t respect me,” it means I am prioritizing my own desires while not considering the other person’s desires.
- It reminds me of something Haruki Murakami wrote in an earlier work—that problems occur because “I am always thinking only about myself.” It feels like a similar situation.
- In the story, Tom becomes upset at one point. But there is a scene where focusing on Bud’s questions calms his mind.
- I often get angry while working. At those times, one of my coworkers does not say something like “Calm down.” Instead, they ask questions about the practical problem that needs to be solved.
- When I face those questions and think about them logically, I feel like I return to myself.
- If that coworker does this because they know it works well to calm me down, I’m grateful.
- I also liked the description of Anita, one of Bud’s former coworkers who lives “outside the box.”
- “Anita did not need to blame me. Because she was not in the box. She did not need to justify herself.”
- While we struggle to figure out how to get out of the “box,” there are people who live as if the “box” never existed in the first place. Somehow, I like that idea.
- For me, my dear Roommate No.1 was someone like that.
