Losing the Labels

Some rights reserved by HowardLake

Labels can be very helpful. If you are looking for a particular canned good in your pantry, for example, you want a label that will tell you what is inside the can and when it was put there or when it will expire.

When shopping for clothes, labels can help us to make sure that we purchase the right size that is made from the kind of materials that we desire.

Labels can even be helpful when we go out to eat. If we are in the mood for Italian cuisine, we don't want to end up at a place that serves Thai food, or vice versa.

However, when it comes to people, labels are not nearly so helpful because they cannot possibly tells us about what is really inside. All of us are so much more than the labels with which we self-identify or with which others have tagged us. Even the labels that I happily and proudly embrace such as wife, mother, Catholic, or Texan fail to fully define who and what I am ... and depending upon another's interpretation of those labels could fail altogether.

It is even worse when someone else attempts to affix an unwanted or an untrue label based upon their impression of who and what I am. I don't like it and resist it at every turn. But, I also realize that I have been guilty of doing that to others. We all use labels in order to keep others in neat, tidy, identifiable little boxes. The problem is that most of our lives aren't always so neat and tidy, and they often have to be squashed unrecognizably to fit into any sort of box whatsoever.

In addition, all of us are living, growing, vibrant beings. I am certainly not the person that I was 20 years ago ... or 10 ... or 5 ... or, even one, for that matter. Labels that were true 6 months ago, may not be entirely accurate now, or might have to be adapted at the very least. But if someone has affixed a predetermined label on me either based on past behavior, or what they think they know about my religious beliefs, or political ideologies, or child-rearing notions, there is no room for them to learn what I really think and certainly no room for me to reveal who I really am or how my ideas might have developed over the years.

It's a hard thing to do ... to stop relying on labels to define others ... but it is essential if we really want to come to know who and what they are at the very core of their beings ... beyond where the labels will reach.