Labels: Substantially Limiting To A Fault?
I never truly discovered myself..... who I was, what I was, until I attained adulthood and this is probably because adulthood is the true reality. Reality in the sense that, we've never really reckoned with what the world is like until we have to make our own choices, take responsibility for our actions and stand to defend our decisions.
The world is full of stereotypes, class divisions, racism, labels and all that, and sometimes we subconsciously understand were we fall into in these endless divisions. Sometimes it's difficult to express ourselves especially when we're limited by labels we automatically slot into of which we can never control. The world isn't peculiar enough, especially with the fact that we have to define people by some particular standard for some specific important purpose in life.
Sometimes, what we are, gives us a different understanding of what reality is. People can specifically relate to us differently especially when they realize that we're different, what they initially love about us begins to wane. A recent knowledge they have come to gather about us is overshadowed by what they have recently come to learn, making it seem like the relationship they've built with us is based on labels, the qualities or the value that they can equate to us. In actuality, we try as much as possible to not let labels define us, but we often succumb to its definition.
There are things we cannot change about ourselves, and sometimes it's hurting when we frequently get identified or recognized by these things. This is mostly because people choose to define their fellow human by the things they can place their finger on. For example, the aspect of "looks" is a vivid definition. "Beautiful and ugly" are labels that we regularly attach to people as a factor that sometimes determines preference.
However, we cannot fault our nature, labels are inborn instincts, our ability to discern makes us categorize everything we come to relate with especially with people, the universe and our environment. One thing labels does is change human attitude or their disposition apart from the fact that people typically lie that labels are just meant to purely categorize others.
The truth is, we cannot take away this Instinct, it's inborn from our ability to make choices backed up by freewill, but the truth is everyone at one point in time have been affected by the unfairness of labels. For me, I do not have a lot of people I can trust in my life, but the few people who I do are the ones who see past the labels to key into what might or might not be valuable in me. Let us forget pride or sentiment, everyone wants to be loved, accepted and found valuable.
However, some people might camouflage this human weakness with the lies that they don't need validation to attain value. In reality, we bask in the positive labels people tend to place on us, we only become unhappy when it's negative and unacceptable. The truth is, everyone seeks people who would look past their visible labels. This is what you'd call a natural likeness or attraction that isn't based on any attributes.
It's often rare because Incentivization of any sort brings extrinsic attraction, but then we would have found fulfillment when people look past the labels we subconsciously fall in, to actually find us valuable, and why not? We want to be loved for who we are and not what are, we seek people who wouldn't find faults with our shortcomings, sometimes, this yearning becomes a fetish in our heart because we sometimes deem it to be impossible.
I haven't fallen and stayed in love a lot in my life, this is because of the level of expectations that is brought about by the inclination towards labels. However, acceptance goes beyond romantic love. It's harsh that we have to fit into a standard or suffer the subconscious negative categorization of people. A lot of people wish they aren't what they are, but what they are is deemed to be "less" by the society.
People who are deemed to be "less" automatically should have "less" in their lives, now, inasmuch as this might not be their goal and aspirations, every of their striving are met by the discrimination caused by labels. We cannot blame our nature like I reiterated, but then, this doesn't mean some of it's gnawing aspects should be wholly fed and allowed to thrive. We should be better, allow our sense of magnanimity, our consciousness to balance some of our cannibalistic nature. At the end of the day, labels are imbued into the mind, and it's our choice to feed it or starve it.
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First off, it's best for anyone to know who they are because reality is reality no matter how we might want it to be.
Perception of others differ from others but what stands is the perception of ourselves how we see ourselves that counts.
I'd prefer to take responsibility for every my thought, instinct and action. It can be very demanding but the blind truth always pan out for me.
Thanks for this...
You're totally right, nevertheless, we often seek for validation from people and this is a direct contradiction to the fact that the perception we hold of ourselves should be what often matters. The background of people often determines a lot about their capacity and how they tend to relate to life issues and all that. Thanks again for your comment.
Without doubt we seek validation from people which would still be in direct proportion to what we already know.
The people we seek validation from are people we can trust because we know that their words are true.
Over the years, we've learnt to keep our circle smaller and smaller so who would we seek validation from, it would be from people that know us.
There are things that we know but hearing it from someone else proves it all worthwhile. I don't mean to beat around the bush but when you say people it sounds like everyone, I guess it's a very limited amount of people that we seek validation because if it's from "people" we haven't truly known ourselves.
Knowing thyself is the first step to absolute control of ourselves.
Well you're right in the aspect of validation. However, when I say people, I only meant to say "a lot of people" because believe me, the desire to attain validation lives in us, unless we deny it.
So I love as you stated knowing thyself
Labels are both a blessing and a curse because when used productively they can serve as motivators and translators. For example, if I were to tell you I'm a "creative thinker" or a "logical reasoner", etc. those labels would tell you a lot with regards to what to expect from me.
I think honest self-labeling can be a good thing when used to inform, but also a destructive weapon when used externally to try to place someone in a box. To that end, I think the inherent tendency for labels to project one person's opinions onto another is where the greatest problem lies with this issue.
In other words, when people are hiding judgment behind their "labels", there's no longer room for a person to push their boundaries.
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Thank you for this aspect or angle towards labelling. I tend to admit in the post that labelling can be positive and sometimes when it is, it can help others to know a lot about us. Nevertheless, I've been exposed to how labelling can ruin people, their chances and how it takes away meaning to their existence.
Nevertheless, it's a thing". It's how we often tend to recognise or place meaning to people and things, it's just that it totally scrap away the essence to what a person truly is.
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Like every other thing labelling keeps the sides of the same coin. That's a good elaboration you have presented. It's not just about self labelling that produce positive results. Labelling others with positive words can also produce profound positive effects. The words have power that represents itself in either forms, good or bad, depending on how we use it.
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This happens to be a concept I read back in medical sociology.
Its kind of similar to the labelling theory.
The talk here dey deep. I feel people who really do not know their worth allow labels affect their thinking tho.
People say I walk like a proud person and think I am actually proud. But when they come they feel a different way.
I don't have to change my step I never knew about because of what people label me as.
I don't know if I am in tune with what you are saying tho
But on a lighter.
Hope you have fallen in love.
Labelling is a broad topic like you've actually pointed out and this is because it centers on so many aspects of the human lives. The aspect you're referring to can be behavioural labelling. In this aspect, we don't have to change because of the pressure to confer an impression and it was good you actually didn't.
@bhoa, I have fallen in love, only hoping it will materialise to something tangible.
Nice.. We hope for the best
Well, it's also complex too, not something I like to write here, the blockchain has no privacy 😅😅😅😅
Labelling affects us in multiple ways. It is quite a frequent claim that we are not affected by of whatever people think about us but that's not the truth. We ARE affected by people's remarks and thoughts. Being labelled continuously in a negative way lead us to have lower self-esteem.
We cannot imagine a world without labelling. For one reason or the other we do need categorization. However, we can go beyond this labelling in close relationship. The best relations are the ones where people love value eachother's positivity despite the presence of other person's negative elements (that are present in everyone). The best relations are the ones where differences are respected, and I think such relationships are quite scarce
You're right, we do need categorisation, I just feel we can be more thorough about it.
With an element of respect for differences, we can categorize without any negative influence, that's what I think
you always seem to choose topics that i find really interesting! i personally cant stand labels and i get a bit angry also when im labelled by some person who has no idea about me..maybe it makes life easier for people who need to have everything in a box, but free spirits dont like being in boxes! great post as always!
Thank you, well my life has been rocked by labels, I probably feel we should know people before we label them, that's if we should even do that in the first place. (Label) while it seems easier, it's unfair to categorise people in ways they wouldn't want to. Thank you for your coming through. I like to write relevant life issues.