Looking Beyond The Label
How Shedding Names And Identifiers Can Free The Mind And Spirit
Do you remember the last time you got rejected by a guy or girl because of your age — regardless of the fact that you two connected so beautifully? How about when the outcome of your life decisions and behaviors were influenced by the number of years you exist (e.g. partying in your 20s)?
And…race? It looks all too familiar when our race strongly determines which sport we play.
We live in a world where labels have become omnipresent: Every time we, for example, click on someone’s social media profile we are confronted with a list of identifiers, such as “Mother, daughter, sister. Christian. Texan.” or “Male. Caucasian. Football player. Taurus. 32.” On the surface, this habit makes sense; it’s natural, being social creatures, that we want to express who we are to other people. However, when we begin to rely so heavily on these labels that we internalize them — we start to use them to define who we are even to ourselves — we risk becoming out of touch with our core essence. Over time, this can lead to profound personal stagnation.
Why Labels Are Limiting — Even Positive Ones
The problem with labels, in the words of wellness blogger Chuck Gallozzi, is that they are “merely shells that contain assumptions.” “People,” says Gallozzi, “Are complex, multifaceted, and multidimensional. When we apply labels to them, we put on blinders and see only a narrow view of an expansive and complicated human being. Did you ever buy a plastic container or bottle of food at the super market with a huge label on the lid and sides that prevented you from seeing the contents? That’s what the labels we use to ‘describe’ people do, they obscure the contents of the individual.”[1]
While most of us are aware of this risk when we see negative labels being applied to people, we fail to realize that neutral and positive labels can be every bit as limiting and destructive to a person’s individuality; their effects are just more subtle and insidious. Take the phenomenon of the “positive stereotype,” for example: Asian-Americans are often praised for being hard workers and straight-A students who particularly excel at math. But what happens if you remind an Asian person of this right before a math test?
According to research published in the journal Psychological Science, you make him or her far more likely to fail to the test: When scientists made Asian-American women aware of the expectations attached to their ethnicity just prior to testing their math skills, they found that the women were prone to collapsing under the pressure of upholding these labels and therefore they often did poorly on the test.[2]
This effect goes far beyond obvious qualifiers like race or a person’s age; scientists have found that compartmentalizing people with labels like, “the jock,” or, “the smart one” in praise of their abilities can paradoxically limit those abilities: Research conducted on students at Columbia University found that those young people who see intelligence as a fixed trait — a label one either has or does not have — developed what is known as a “fixed growth mindset” which subsequently limited their motivation and achievements. Those with “fixed views about intelligence were primarily focused on proving their smartness and so were less motivated to learn and less likely to take on challenges.” They also experienced more interpersonal conflict and were less likely to rebound from failure (hint: what happened to some of the smartest kids from your high school?).[3]
Carol Dweck, a psychologist at Stanford University who was involved in the study, found that “when you change [this] belief, a lot of important things happen: students’ motivation turns around; their grades and test scores go up; managers become better mentors, more successful negotiators.” The study concluded that, “When children or even adults are taught that abilities and character features can develop and change, they become more resilient to setbacks.”
Taken too far, reliance on a label can be crushing: Most of us are familiar with the personal crises that may follow when, for example, a jock suffers a crippling injury and can no longer play sports, a military man is faced with retirement, or a fashion model grows older and finds herself no longer in demand. If these individuals have defined themselves too completely by their roles, they often lose their sense of purpose and identity altogether, sinking into a state of depression.
Even if things never quite get this dire, many people will cling to labels that they have outgrown at some point during their lives, simply to avoid the confusion of facing who they are when removed from them.
Matthew B. James, Ph.D., of Psychology Today, explains it like this: “As human beings, we are quick to identify ourselves using our circumstances; how others perceive us, our behaviors, and/or our positions in life.” In the short term, it’s “Comforting to clothe ourselves in these identities. But none of those are really who we are. And the problem with latching onto these identities is, in addition to limiting our growth, it leaves us lost and confused when they are stripped from us.”
Discovering The Core Self: Moving Beyond Labels
Don’t hate me if I forget your name, rather pay attention that I remembered your unique core. Good excuse next time you forget someone’s name? Maybe, maybe not. Our names can be a basis of judgement and mediocrity.
The idea that even positive labels can cause harm introduces a question many of us find frightening to contemplate: “If I am not my labels, who am I?” Deprived of the easy answers that convenient identifiers provide us, we often feel naked, stripped bare of the social armor that tells us where we belong, how we fit in, and what our goals should be.
But if you sit with this fear a moment and let it pass, you will notice something: You are still you. Nothing has happened other than that you took a moment to consider possibilities outside of the boxes you generally inhabit. You stepped outside of your experience long enough to observe your experience and realize the power of your pure conscious force to shape it.
If you continue to practice this kind of mindful observation and take control of your internal narrative (rather than allowing external qualifiers to control you) you will come to understand that, as Michael A. Singer describes in his book The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself, “Only you can take inner freedom away from yourself, or give it to yourself. Nobody else can.” Putting a customary label on yourself will negatively affect the way you perceive your environment and will misdirect your attention from the real you.
If you feel, as many people do, that we have some form of eternal soul or consciousness, then it only makes sense that the raw material of a person’s essence will be shaped and reshaped many times: As part of an infinitely multifaceted universe, we ourselves are microcosms of potential without limit, ever-changing and ever-evolving. When we shed our labels and open ourselves up to this basic truth, we give ourselves room to grow and the ability to embrace an unpredictable, dynamic future.
[1] Avoiding the consumption of assumption, Gallozzi, Chuck, http://www.personal-development.com/chuck/labels.htm
[2] When Positive Stereotypes Threaten Intellectual Performance: The Psychological Hazards of “Model Minority” Status, http://pss.sagepub.com/content/11/5/399.short
[3] Study: Your Personality Can Change (and Probably Should), http://www.livescience.com/9507-study-personality-change.html
