Labels

I don't like labels.

Well, I like them on my cans and bottles and boxes.

But not on people.

For groceries, labels are great. They give me a lot of useful information and help me make decisions.

For people, they are mostly barriers. They get in between us and make it hard to see each other.
I understand why we use them. Labels can be useful. They can help us to quickly and efficiently communicate information about ourselves to each other. But no label is ever going to accurately and completely describe most people.

I think that - as a culture - we are much too quick to try to fit everyone into convenient little boxes of our own experience.

We label - she's a mom ... he's conservative ... she's Hispanic ... he's gay - and because we know that one thing about a person, we assume other things. And then all of our interactions are colored by those assumptions.

Most people don't fit neatly into the box of our preconceptions. And by slapping a label on someone and leaving it at that, you limit your ability to really get to know them.

You might be a Christian or a Buddhist or an atheist. You might be a teacher or a taxi driver or a Leo. You might be overweight or blond or deaf or vegan. You might have migraines or a tattoo or cancer. You might be a step-parent, a widow, a firefighter, a geek.

But those things are not who you ARE. Those are just bits and pieces of a much bigger picture. You are more than that. You are complex and mysterious and beautiful. Don't sell yourself - or others - short.

If we limit our identities to one - or even a combination - of our myriad labels, we only limit how well we can really know each other.

Before you decide you know who someone is because she is a christian, a southerner, a veteran, a democrat, a stay-at-home mom, etc. ... stop a minute. Peel up that label. Look underneath. Maybe there's someone under there worth knowing.

If you just read the dust jacket and think you know the whole story, you might just be missing out on something really interesting between the pages.

Real people are so much more complex. At least most of them are.

That guy over there might be just a Rosencrantz or a Guildenstern from your perspective. But he is the star of his own story. Maybe if you take a few minutes to learn more about him than just his label ... you might enrich your story.