Psychological Boxes
An Essay on Compartmentalization
March 13, 2024
By Garry Fitchett
Picture a large Maersk container ship chock full of twenty-foot long colorful containers. Maersk’s largest ship is the Mc-Kinney Moller which can carry 18,270 of these twenty-foot equivalent units (called TEU’s). Maersk has in its fleet over 700 of these ships transporting containers to 374 ports in 116 countries. And Maersk is not even the largest player in the container-ship transporting industry.
(MSC – Mediterranean Shipping Company is the largest)
While picturing this ship you see these containers are placed precisely side-by-side completely traversing the width of the ship. They are also stacked on top of each other at a height much higher than would seem practical or safe considering the long voyage ahead. Each container holds its unique, particular, and precious cargo. Every container, with its relatively thin walls, keeps its unique cargo separate from all the other neighboring boxes. Each container is sealed and its contents never mingle with any others whether they be to its side or to the top or bottom of where that particular box resides on this massive ship. In fact, it would take a rather tragic accident to cause the containers to break or rupture exposing their contents and then risking the chance of comingling those contents with a neighboring box. In addition, using weight and volume calculations, the ship remains true and level with the whole operation staying in balance for the duration of the trip. Everything is separated; everything in balance as the ship makes its way to a port-of-call.
The vision of this container ship’s scene, in my opinion, is an analog to the way we all conduct various aspects of our lives, knowingly or unknowingly. However, for us our containers, our boxes, don’t contain products per se, but mental and emotional constructs.
Here is an example of what I mean:
Last year I was planning on visiting my younger brother, John, at his new condo in Sarasota, Florida. Aware that I was arriving in just a few days he kindly asked me if there were any grocery item treats he could pick-up for me that I might want during my weeklong stay. My only request was for tonic water and I mentioned a specific brand, Fever-Tree. I had recently discovered this Fever-Tree brand and now prefer it over others for my Gin and Tonics which I knew I would be enjoying during my visit to south Florida. When I arrive and enter his kitchen I see a six-pack of Canada Dry tonic water on the countertop. I casually ask, “So I see your local store doesn’t carry the Fever-Tree brand of tonic?” Please note this Fever-Tree brand costs $5.99 for four eight ounce bottles versus the Canada Dry tonic costing $4.99 for six ten ounce bottles. My brother’s response to my query was to say that the store stocked it, but that he was not going to pay $5.99 for that tonic water.
Now for me, as such an easy going guy, this situation is not really a ‘needle-mover’ in my life. I’ve drank Canada Dry tonic before and it’s fine so this situation warranted no further discussion. We just move on to our next topic of conversation - no biggie.
After a couple of Canada Dry Gin & Tonics my brother tells me he has set-up dinner reservations for us at a very nice restaurant located on Main Street in downtown Sarasota. Dining out is something we are quick to do when we are together so this sounds great. We Uber to the restaurant and over the course of a couple of hours we each have a couple of drinks and, like close brothers with similar tastes, we share four mutually-agreed-upon appetizers for our dinner. The bill comes to around $150 with tip and John says, “No problem, I got this for us.”
This is a fairly typical course of events when we get together as I will surely foot the bill for tomorrow night’s dinner.
That evening I reflect on the tonic and dinner situation and I think, OK, my brothers retort to buying my favorite tonic water, and the only request I had, lasting me for the next three to four days, costing him a whole dollar more than he would normally consider to spend for tonic water is, “No fricking way”. But to spend $150 for a two hour dinner experience his response is, “No problem”.
This is not an important example of what I refer to in this essay as psychological boxes, but it is a graphic one that characterizes my idea.
Here is another example.
A local Williamsburg businessman that I have come to know through a mutual friend trades stocks and commodities for his own account. This is his business. He runs it from an office he rents in New Town. He conducts his daily trades using ‘margin’ which creates leverage and gives him more investing power. This means if he wagers $20,000 of his own money on a trade he may get to establish a $60,000 position in a particular stock or commodity for his account. In this example he is levered three-to-one. So, in this very common occurrence for him, if his position moves two percent on the day, up or down, he will either enjoy a six percent gain or conversely, a six percent loss. Daily, this gentleman makes and loses thousands of dollars sometimes in a matter of minutes. This is the business he’s been engaged in since his mid-twenties.
One day I randomly run-into-him while standing at a local Harris Teeter check-out line and he comments that his wife sent him there to pick-up some chicken for their dinner. He further explains, in a pretty excited manner, that he lucked out because the chicken’s on sale this week for fifty cents off a pound. “Wonderful”, I reply as I notice he holding a four pound pack of chicken which will grant him a very handsome two-dollar windfall. Psychological boxes I think as I contemplate how a businessman exposing himself to literally thousands of dollars of trading gains and losses in a day can be excited about saving two-dollars for tonight’s dinner: One dollar of savings for him and one dollar for his wife.
The only way I can explain to myself this type of human phenomena and behavior as exhibited by my brother and this local friend is to consider the idea that we all compartmentalize certain aspects of our lives, which I refer to in this essay as Psychological Boxes.
Psychological Boxes. I would venture to say that we all have them and you may now be thinking of your own personal examples. These boxes we have formulated for ourselves, as real as the physical boxes on that Maersk container ship, in some esoteric way keeps us all ‘level and in balance’ as we make our unique voyage though our lives. This box characterization is the only way I can get my arms around these types of very commonly observed situations, such as I have noted. How can one view the same fundamental ‘happening’ so differently? It must be because one set of circumstances in a particular setting or environment is being viewed from a frame of reference that differs, in our minds at least, from the other? Mental constructs, as exemplified by these examples, are something we all employ and are at work in our lives.
Referring back to the Maersk transport ship I asked you to picture at the start you will remember that the colorful containers are not only placed side-by-side but also above and below each other. This brings me to my second observation about how psychological boxes play a part in our lives.
When I picture containers on the Maersk ship, one on top another, it reminds me of the expression, I’m sure you’ve all heard before, that One person’s ceiling in another person’s floor. The singer, Paul Simon, even wrote a song about it titled, ‘One Man’s Ceiling is Another Man’s Floor.’ His song’s lyrics describe the challenges of tenants living in a high-rise apartment complex. However, I have always understood this idea and expression to mean the following: Where one person aspires to get to in their lives, another person seemingly leap-frogs traditional obstacles and is able to simply start at the same desired point. One person’s ceiling is another person’s floor. This idea is demonstrated in many forms. Here are a two examples.
The first example is of two aspiring young business-minded men or women who have the same idea to build a business that will require a $100,000 start-up investment. To accomplish this Person A decides that they will diligently work for the next five years, living austerely, allowing them to save the necessary start-up money to accomplish their goal.
Person B, in this example, who has the same need to obtain $100,000 for a business venture, but viewing the predicament from a ‘higher psychological box’ takes a totally different approach. They decide to risk every single asset they currently own in an attempt to borrow ‘on a shoestring’ the necessary startup capital. Or possibly they pursue presenting a compelling sales pitch in the hope of securing the necessary money from a third-party outside investor. This would-be investor is wooed to invest from the sheer excitement, confidence, and strong communication skills of this would-be entrepreneur.
Would-be-entrepreneur B does not view the $100,000 as a ceiling, that will take five years to accomplish, but simply as the floor right where they stand. How can this be? Psychological Boxes play their part. Perhaps Person B takes their chosen tack because of supreme belief in themselves, or out of sheer naivete about the pitfalls sure to come in attempting to build a business. Do they somehow know, subliminally, that a sure way to eventual success is to fail early and often in one’s pursuit of a goal? As they are not one to tip-toe softly through life trying to get to death safely. And if they indeed fail and lose this $100,000 investment then one day, later in life in a reflective moment, they will see the $100,000 lost/spent as merely a tuition payment necessary to obtain a valuable lesson. A lesson that may magnify and grow into something even more valuable later in life. As an analogy, consider when someone happens onto a construction site in any major city and wondering how tall the building will eventually be has only to observe the depth of the foundational hole: Deeper the hole taller the building.
In the example, these two potential business people, harboring the exact same business concept and having the same financial needs, operate from very different psychological box levels causing their timeframes for success or failure to be either drastically condensed or elongated. It’s good for us all to be very watchful of what words we use to describe ourselves and our situations because ‘words have energy and cast spells: That’s why they call it spelling’. (quote from Bruce Lee)
Here is another example of the idea that one’s ceiling is another’s floor: A young aspiring college basketball coach works their way up to a Division I major college position by spending literally decades of his or her life, while barely making a livable wage, proving their coaching prowess at first Division III and then Division II colleges, before finally getting the Division I high profile and paying job. A different aspiring coach goes immediately to a high-profile D-I team and tells them they are willing to work for basically free to do any job they want to give them. A real life example is Erik Spoelstra of the Miami Heat. He begin work with the Miami Heat Professional basketball team in 1995 as a ‘video guy’. Because of his work ethic and after a stint in various assistant coaching positions he was promoted to head coach in 2008: Last September he received an eight year extension for 120 million dollars.
Yes, one Maersk ship container’s ceiling is another container’s floor.
My final point regarding our “Psychological Boxes” is to reemphasize that the contents of one box do not co-mingle or spill over to another box without some sort of significant accident occurring. Maybe a bridge or another large vessel is struct, resulting in containers being ruptured and the precious contents come spilling out all over.
Likewise for us, if the unexpected happens, such as an accident resulting in a near-death experience for us or a loved one, or we suffer a sudden financial loss, or whatever it may be: Now the walls of one’s finely assembled boxes are obliterated in a flash and a fresh brand-new point of view arrives for the first time. A paradigm shift occurs and the ephemeral walls of our precious boxes rupture and the contents are exposed and, maybe for the first time, critically examined.
The bottom-line is that the walls of our meticulously constructed Psychological-Boxes can melt away in an instant under certain conditions, because they never really existed in the first place. Unlike containers on that Maersk ship, we are the architects of our own very personal, very curious, and more times-than-not, very constrictive walls that devise our psychological boxes as we make our way to a final port-of-call.