Destroy the Box: Why You Shouldn’t Let Labels Define You
It seems our society has become obsessed with labels. We have to come up with a label for everything and everyone. If something doesn’t fit into a category, people will spend hours upon hours creating an explanation for it or creating a new category. Everything needs to fit in a box.
I went to school to be a teacher. While student teaching I had over 2/3rds of my 1st grade class being tested for some sort of label. I was mortified. In working in a preschool, I saw people try to label kids as young as infants with every label you could think of by teachers and parents who were looking for answers.
If you listen to kids talk at school from elementary on up, they label each other by how they look, their intelligence levels, their interests and skills, pretty much anything you can think of. Adults do it too. Introverts vs extroverts. INTJ, ENTP, and the other 14 MBTI personality types, depressed, bipolar, obese, skinny, average, athletic, straight, gay, black, brown, white, you name it. Basically everything needs to be explained by a label.
We all have labels. Some may be “accurate”, “justifiable” or “understandable”. Others may be completely bogus, forced or inaccurate. Labels are everywere. Some are scientific, political, researched based. Others are adjectives that people used to put someone into a category, true or not. For some reason we need labels to explain everything.
The problem with our society today is they are so quick to label everything and everyone, that we begin to believe we are what we are labeled and the self fulfilling prophecy kicks in. I have seen it in kids, teenagers and adults. Someone’s called dumb as a child, they begin to believe they are and give up. Another person is told they can’t do something because of their gender, race or age and they give up, believing that this label is so powerful, it can control them. We’ve all been there. Unfortunately some labels are so harsh and controlling, they cost lives. They cost dreams. And they cost relationships.
We all have moments of self doubt, moments when we are lost and confused. I was confused my whole childhood and teenage years. I was lost, misunderstood and looking for answers. I never told anyone, I put a smile on my face and pretended life was grand. It wasn’t until college when I was labeled an introvert and shortly after graduation at my job, I was labeled INTJ (Myers-Bring Type Indicator, Intuitive, Intuition, Thinking, Judging). At first these labels put the pieces together and helped me understand and recoup from my childhood. I was relieved to know how my brain worked and how I functioned.
Quickly though, as I used them to explain myself I felt myself getting caught up with the labels. They became my identity. An escape goat. All of a sudden they started dictating my life. When this realization hit, I put the breaks on. I was doing to myself what I hated people doing to my classroom of 3,4,5 year olds. Letting a label determine and confine who I was and what I could do. I quickly changed my mindset.
Now, I’m 24, live in a completely different environment and have a whole new life. I erased all labels given to me, let myself be free to be me. And my life has changed drastically in the most positive of ways.
Labels should not dictate or control you. Tell you what you can and can’t do. How you should or shouldn’t view yourself. What your abilities, skills and hobbies are. I write on Quora and people ask me all the time “What should I do for a job as an INTJ?” which is the personality type I most identify with. Well if you Google it some top jobs are: Scientists, Computer Programer, Dentist, etc. but none of the suggested jobs are anything I would ever want to do. Why pick a job just because of a label, only to be miserable?
I recently found a least popular career list for INTJs and at the top was Preschool Teacher. Yet I was one for 6 years. And I was a great one. I loved it. I started as an assistant and grew faster than any other teacher in the center. Less than a year after college graduation and becoming full time, my boss told me I had out grown the center as a teacher and she was concerned about losing me if she couldn’t find ways to challenge me. Not long after that I quit my job and half my class left with me.
I was a phenomenal preschool teacher. Yet if I had know I was an INTJ and read this list before going to college, I may have let my label define me and I would have never been one. I wouldn’t have touched those children and parent’s lives. I wouldn’t have learned so much about myself. I wouldn’t have met my business partner and I wouldn’t be where I am today.
If I listen to others and the labels they gave me throughout my life, I wouldn’t own a company. I wouldn’t be a COO. I wouldn’t be writing here today. I don’t know what I’d be, but I can imagine my life would not be exciting, fulfilling and I would never have reached my potential or happiness. Somehow I was fortunate enough to figure this out and work everyday to destroy every box I’ve ever been put in to reach my fullest potential.
I encourage and challenge others to do the same. Especially those put in boxes similar to myself. Boxes that tell you that you can’t be someone or do something that you want to. Boxes that lower your self confidence. Boxes that limit you. Boxes that devalue or degrade you. No one needs those. Smash them. Destroy them. Erase them. Create your own life how you want it. Don’t let someone dictate how your story turns out, write your own story and make sure to include your own happy ending.
