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About five years ago I was in the middle of a remodeling project where we were finishing off our basement. One of the things that I really wanted to have was a great entertainment system, complete with the big-screen television, home theater system, and the whole nine yards.
I remember running wires all over the place from one room to the next, running cables where I thought I may need a connection somewhere down the line, through the walls and above the ceiling tiles and to and from the amplifier. It was a quite complicated setup, and to keep it all straight I had my best friend to help me out: my label maker.
I used that label maker to tag every single cable and cord and wire that I ran to and from the entertainment system. I had so many cords that were identical, and the only way that I could ever hope to tell them apart, especially after the drywall was hung and the ceiling was in place, was through the use of labels.
While the use of a labels was vital to the success of the remodeling project and wiring process, the use of labels can be extremely counterproductive in our social interactions with other people. Labels are used to discriminate or distinguish otherwise identical components from each other. In my opinion, this is why the use of labels is more harmful than helpful to us in building meaningful and peaceful connections with other people.
We all are human. We all have the capacity to love and not to love. We all have the capacity to feel emotions, and we all have the ability to choose how to respond to the emotions that we are experience and that change many times throughout the day.
What makes you different from me is only what we choose to recognize as distinctions or differences. Socially we have been conditioned throughout our lives to distinguish and differentiate. Tragically, in my opinion, we have been conditioned to view different as non-desirable. We then attach “labels” to those distinctions, calling other people, “stupid,” “weird,” “crazy,” and other things.
We look at the religions of other people, and automatically make assumptions. We determine someone’s political stance and judge them. We look at someone who is attracted to another of the same gender and think it’s “wrong.”
They divide us based on differences, rather than uniting us based on similarities. Labels create an uneven playing field in our minds. We look at others as “less than” or “not good” simply because they fall into a nicely-created category that we’ve created for everyone just like them.
The further we divide ourselves from others, the further from peace and closer to violence we find ourselves. They key to peace, harmony, happiness, and joy is seeking and finding similarities with other people. It’s about bringing ourselves closer to others in commonality while celebrating what makes us unique.
Put down the label maker. There’s no real need for us to distinguish or discriminate. This whole planet full of people will be so much better off when we can start loving each other for who we are, without our pre-conceived (and often inaccurate) notions of who and what other people are based on a category in which we’ve placed them. Seek to find commonalities, and celebrate uniqueness.
Consequently, over the years, as I’ve revisited the wiring in my home entertainment system, I’ve found that the labels have faded, making it difficult if not impossible to determine which wire is which anymore. To me, it’s a symbolic reminder that labels can be temporary and can fade over time if we don’t maintain or nurture them.
Don’t you think it’s time for a change? Don’t you think it’s time to move beyond labels and categories? I’d love to hear your thoughts! Please leave a comment below and I’ll promise to respond.
This week I am happy to welcome back to my show Dani DiPirro of Positively Present. During our talk, we’ll discuss her upcoming book, as well as some easy ways to stay in the moment. She’s always a great interview, because she shares such valuable advice. If you haven’t heard her yet, or if your aren’t a follower of her website, I encourage you to take a listen.
Click on Dani’s picture to listen to the show!
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