Boxes

Have you noticed how life slowly packs us into boxes? Not real ones, but invisible ones. And the walls aren’t made of bricks; they’re made of expectations. There’s a box called husband, built entirely from what your wife thinks you should be. Another called father, shaped by the expectations of your kids. Then there’s boss, defined by how your team sees you. And of course report, framed by what your manager wants. Stack enough of these together and suddenly you’re surrounded by walls. Small, tight cubes. It feels stifling after a while. People love to say, “Just get out of the box.” Easy advice, but let’s be honest: you can’t. You can’t quit being a father, a partner, a colleague, a friend. These roles are part of life. If you walked away from all of them, you wouldn’t just be leaving the box; you’d be leaving everything that gives life meaning. So the real question isn’t how do I escape the box? It’s how do I stop feeling trapped inside it?

Let’s admit it: expectations aren’t all bad. They’re actually what make relationships work. A child should expect care from their parent. A team should expect some direction from their boss. Without expectations, we’d just be random people floating past each other. The trouble starts when those expectations harden into rules. Rules to follow every moment, every day. That’s when you can’t breathe. And to make things trickier, no two people expect the same thing. One person on your team may want constant feedback, while another just wants to be left alone. Which one do you satisfy? Both? Neither? You can’t win. That’s when the walls start closing in.

“Just be yourself,” people say. Sounds liberating, right? But what does that even mean when you’re also responsible for kids, deadlines, and finances? You can’t just step out and declare you’re free of roles. The boxes don’t vanish. You will always be someone’s father, someone’s partner, someone’s colleague. Pretending otherwise is just denial. So no, the trick isn’t smashing the walls down. The trick is pushing them so far apart that you stop noticing them.

Here’s what I’ve found works: you can’t erase expectations, but you can stretch the space inside them. Sometimes it’s as simple as a conversation. The conversation helps redefining what being a “good boss” or a “good parent” means, in your language, not just in theirs. Other times it’s noticing that half the walls aren’t even real. They live only in your head. We often imagine people expect far more than they actually do. And sometimes it’s about reminding yourself that you’re more than the roles. Yes, you’re a father. Yes, you’re a colleague. But you’re also you. The one with quirks, dreams, and ways of showing up that don’t fit neatly into anyone’s box. Push those walls far enough, and the cube starts to feel more like open space. The labels are still there, but they don’t cage you anymore.

The funny thing? When the boxes stop suffocating you, you actually get better at playing the roles inside them. A father who feels free shows up with more patience. A boss who isn’t chained to every expectation leads with more energy. It’s ironic: the less trapped you feel, the better you perform in the very boxes that once confined you.

We all live in boxes made of other people’s expectations. That part won’t change. What can change is how much room we give ourselves inside them. Stretch the walls until they blur. And when they blur, you’ll notice something: you’re still in the box, but it doesn’t feel like a prison anymore. It feels like space you can move around in, experiment in, even enjoy. That’s when we finally get to perform; not as puppets acting out someone else’s script, but as ourselves, shaping each role in a way only we can.

C