166: Border

'Don't write the word out of the border of the square, otherwise teacher will gibe u a black pig ga la.' When we were children, our mum should have talked similar things to us when we were doing penmanship homework. We must write all the things within the square or above the line and this is how our hand-writing be judged. The border is very clear.

When having public exams in secondary school, we need to put our answers in answer booklets. There is no limit on number of words of the answers and most candidates would tend to write more and write as many as they could. Although a long answer does not guarantee high marks, an answer with only a few lines or half page cannot earn many marks. There is no border indeed, but there is a self-created border.

When came to work, we usually have to make up the skeleton and no one will provide clear guidelines. And sometimes very detailed analysis is preferred, but sometimes your boss would want it to be as brief as possible. We definitely would not and could not knock the door of the boss and ask the word limit and the main ideas as we did when we were students. We have to make judgement ourselves. There is no established border and no one will create a border. The border is invisible and judgemental.

Adults have independent thinking. Even not all adults are working as a professional, each of them usually have to make professional judgements at their position. Since the border is invisible, this should not be deliberately created and limit one's action, as long as it is not in contrary to established ground rules and morality.

Jump out of the invisible borders and discover more!