Labels

Recently, while dropping my youngest child off, I noticed a pair of kindergarteners holding hands and skipping into school  Physically, the two could not have looked more different... everything from their skin and hair color, height and weight to the clothes they were wearing and their fabulous choices in lunch boxes and backpacks, each indicating a style all his/her own.  Their joy in that moment was contagious, and I suspect I was not the only carpool mom smiling at the purity of their enthusiasm as they bounded towards the building.

And it struck me...

We start out so inclusive and accepting of others, excited, engaged.  We are pure in thought and without prejudice.  Somewhere along the way, though, so many people lose their ability to focus on this concept of togetherness.  When do we begin to mistrust people who we perceive as different from us?  What makes us judge one another based on things like gender, political party, religious affiliation, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, appearance and social status?

The truth is that we are tragically losing young people as a result of the divisive nature of labels... labels that are placed on kids, often from an early age, by other children as well as by adults, labels that are learned somewhere along the way.  We are not born with the “labeling gene”.  While we hope that we are raising our kids to know right from wrong, to be accepting and inclusive, the truth is that as adults, we do, indeed, model labeling behavior in both subtle and overt ways.  Labels bias our opinions and perceptions and have the ability to separate us, one from another.  While it’s true that labels also have the ability to connect us, it seems as though exclusivity can arise even in the most well-intentioned groups.  

W.C. Fields said, “it’s not what they call you, it’s what you answer to,” that matters.  We often buy into others’ perceptions of us which, at times, can affect our outlook and actions.  Further, we try to neatly define who we are via various labels we create for ourselves.  None of us can be linearly packaged... we are far too complicated for that.  

We must evolve.  Whether it is our own bias and judgments, others’ perceptions of us, or our self-imposed definitions, the divisive labeling has to stop.  We are more alike than different, and we, as thoughtful people, must stand up and speak up for the voiceless among us.  

Namaste is sometimes simply defined as “I honor the place in you where, when you are in that place, and I am in that place, there is only one of us.”

We are one.  Let us cultivate metta and make a difference.

Namaste.

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