Label This!

Why must we label and categorize everything in our society?

I don't want to be labelled. I want to be Abby. Don't call me a biologist, a musician, a crazy strung out blogging wacko. Those are things I do, not who I am.

There's a great scene in the movie Anger Management where Adam Sandler's character is asked to define who he is. Every time he answers, Jack Nicolson tells him he's telling him what he does, not who he is. Eventually Sandler flips out. He wants to give the right answer, but he doesn't know what is being asked of him.

I understand his confusion. To function in this world, we have to choose a label. Other people have to put us in a box in order to give us our place in the world.

I don't want to be in a box. Today, I might be a writer. Tomorrow, I may want to be a rock star. The next day, I might be a hermit, or the world's greatest lover. The problem is that we aren't open to changing our characterizations of others. Once you're in the box, you are supposed to stay there.

As I approach thirty, I am commonly asked questions so that others might label me. Am I married? No. Engaged? No. In a relationship? No. Have children? No. Ooooh. So you're one of those women who has "sacrificed" traditional family values for her career. Well, no. I don't really have a career to speak of. If a man comes along and love happens, then sure, you might be able to stick some of those labels on me. But that isn't who I am.

The more I think about labels, the more it bothers me. The ones that really bother me involve children. They don't know who they are yet, but we stick them with labels. That's the smart kid. That's a Muslim kid. That's a Jewish kid. That's a troublemaker. That's the athletic kid.

This labelling might help sort your internal filing system, but it also succeeds in limiting ourselves in our relationship with others. If you think of me as a musician, you may never ask me the sorts of questions to find out I love calculus. Yep. Calculus. And I might start thinking that the only face I can show to the world is the one attached to my label.

That's it. That's the main point. We get pushed into a box, and miss so much of ourselves and others that could be enjoyed, were we not weighed down by these labels.

So shake them off. The next time you're describing a person, think about the words you're tagging them with. Is that truly who that person is?