Photo: Chen Xinyuan

 
If thinking is a bird, then one’s mindset is the cage to lock the bird; If the mind is a fish, then the mindset is the fish tank which traps the fish. It is easy to fall into a seemingly correct thinking cycle called "mindset". When thinking about a quantity of problems, only by letting go of inspiration and thinking out of the box, can we make our thoughts broader and deeper, and achieve final success.

In daily life, I’m also often influenced by my mindset inadvertently. For example, after learning a new formula, I always apply it to the problem directly but neglect to think about various methods. When a piece of white paper with a black dot is presented to me, it is the black dot but not the white paper that attracts my attention. This mind-set does great harm by making us look at things, focusing only on the most glaring situations and ignoring the whole; it makes us deal with problems only locally, not globally.

Unamuno once said, "when you start following your habits, and you lose your initiative."  With the development of human civilization, we need to look at problems more rationally and break the conventional way of thinking to solve problems. But how can we get out of the so-called thinking box and see the white paper while others just see the black dots?

From my perspective，we are supposed to break the shackles of common sense and experience. In our common sense and experience, is the rising sun lilac? Of course not, but Monet tells us that the rising sun in the mist is not real, but clearly not red. With his profound brush strokes, he dyed the light and shadow of the sun and created " Impression Sunrise",  which started the trend of impressionism. He was ahead of his time by thinking outside the box. So we must make it clear that we can't do anything without common sense, but we can't go much further with common sense alone, too. Just as with the apple that hit Newton, instead of common sense and thinking, Newton discovered gravitation and opened a new era in the development of science. 

We also need to keep learning to break out of our own mindset. As the saying goes, it is never too late to learn. By learning, you can get to know the minds of people in different industries and know some new ideas from them. A new field is completely different from what you already have, but can be fulfilling in some way, which is so new to you and can also stimulate new ideas. For example, Yuan Longping, who is still learning English in his nineties, has not only activated his thinking, but also enriched his life.

After all, we live in the ever-changing 21st century, things are constantly updated, which requires us to be creative and think out of the box. I firmly believe that through hard thinking and practice, we can think outside the box，even think outside the “think outside the box” box and keep on innovating.