Life is full of labels. People are always looking for a quick easy way to define who another person is and what they stand for. It is where we get the majority of our stereotypes from. There are Christians, Muslims, and Jews, blacks, whites, yellows and reds, democrats and republicans, liberals and conservatives, nerds and jocks, and literally millions more.
The problem with labels is when someone hears that a certain label applies to you they tend to act as if all of your potential has been limited to that one particular facet of your way of being, as if that single adjective completely defines who and what you are. And that could not be further from the truth.
Take for example the label of Christian. First of all it means different things to different people. But to many people it means a person who has good morals and ethics. To some it means people that intrude on the lives of others and try to make decisions for them, decisions that aren't theirs to make.
There is only one Bible. But there are over one thousand sects of Christianity and each one has beliefs that are different and distinct enough for them to have their own specific label. Episcopalians, 7th Day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses and many many others.
Each person within each sect of Christianity has their own viewpoint on what being Christian means. Each has their own values and beliefs. Literally Christian simply means follower of Christ. If a person tells you that they are a Christian, if you take anything more from that label than the literal definition you are being unfair to that person, by pigeonholing them and lumping them in with all of the other Christians that you have ever known.
I've mentioned in the past that first impressions are a terrible thing and the main reason really is because it's where we get the labels that we put on a person, like name tags. And then in the future we subconsciously replace the person with the labels.
Most of the labels that we associate with a given person represent just a fraction
of what they really think and believe. We are not any single label. We
are an amalgamation of all of the things that we see, do, think and
believe. A true representation of a person would require hundreds if not
thousands of labels. For example when people ask me what religion I
follow, I tell them that I am a Buddhist, Jehovah's Witness, Viking.
Then I twist things even further by saying that I am not very religious
but am extremely spiritual.
I have taken bits and pieces of many major religions and formed an ethical code of what I believe is right and wrong. No simple label could ever really describe my religious beliefs. Pagan doesn't work. Neither does agnostic. My political beliefs work the same way. Some are republican ideals, others democratic, some liberal some conservative.
There is no hard set fast easy way to define any given person. Indeed from day to day sometimes our beliefs change. What we thought was true yesterday may not be what we think today. Think about all the labels that have been applied to you by other people. How many of them really fit? Are you the stereotype that people are talking about when they mention a specific label?
Each of us is unique. We may share certain traits with others. But do we really need the labels?
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