Things are Seldom What They Seem

Drop the attitude. Quit the labeling act. Seriously. Stereotyping is so outdated, it should not be part of our vocabulary.

There's more to every single one of us than meets the eye. When you stick a label on to someone; you're really limiting any kind of experience or interaction you could possibly have. You're eliminating this person from having a voice of their own and using it. You’ve tuned them out completely; or worse you send them suffocating glances of disapproval.

We express ourselves differently. It's how we make sense of things, of who we are, and what we're about. Isn't it our freedom to do that, a given right we have as humans? Sometimes it comes as second nature to tag people into groups, something that's familiar. Sort of mentally categorizing who they are and what they represent. We tend to act according to that labeled category and what we make of it.

This may sound pretty acceptable; even smart in certain situations. It seems savvy to read people and interpret their behavior. Creating boundaries, and placing people where they belong within the walls of those boundaries. It gives you signs of what to do, how to communicate and deal with them, all the way to what topics to completely avoid. You're shaping your relation with them based on it. You decide where to draw the line, getting closer or just staying away - being passionate, supportive, nasty, malicious or condescending. It's all in that label you made.

The grave error in doing this is that we are wrong at times. We judge. We make assumptions. We jump to conclusions. We build up so many non-existing scenarios in our heads that lead us to believe in a truth that is not remotely related to actual reality. We accuse and make a verdict, if only between ourselves. We have little idea, if any, of what actually is real, what those people we label are about. We don’t have all the pieces to the puzzle, something is missing in the picture, but we hardly care to complete it or verify. More importantly I must add, we almost always make our judgments prematurely, presuming way too soon to have all the facts. If I were to give this act a label, it would be ignorant.

Things are seldom what they seem.

There is an odd relationship that exists between people. We're all connected in this universe. All of mankind. It is a small world; no denying that. I'm talking about connections on a totally different level. We are different - we think, act, understand, feel, speak and even look different. We have different beliefs, interests and skills but strangely enough in essence we are really the same. It's like a Venn Diagram. I'm surprising my own self making an analogy to a Mathematical concept. There are two circles that have a number of elements. The circles overlap. That area is common to both because the elements exist in both circles. We have things in common. It's never fully mutually exclusive.

How many times have you caught yourself saying 'I was wrong about so and so, never thought they were like that' . It goes beyond first impressions where some people simply fail to impress. Some labels, some stereotypes exist way before any actual communication takes place. We despise and hold grudges based on labels. A label does not even constitute to a side of the story. It's drastically less . It's a small part of the design on the cover page.

Wouldn’t it be utterly boring if we were all exactly the same? I mean the entire race of Homo sapiens, nothing unique about any one. Maybe you can argue that some cultures are collectivists and others promote grouping. Albeit we all belong. We all belong, to a family, a significant other, to a school, an organization, a sports club, a religion, a political group. We flaunt our talents and create mini groups as well. We have a country we belong to. There are layers and various belief systems that make us up and form our characters and identity.

Malcolm Gladwell , author of the bestselling book Blink, states we have two seconds to make up our mind about people, and things. We rely on our gut feelings, our instinct. We all have our own hunches. While it's perfectly normal and recommended to maintain that attitude going through life, it's the exact opposite when it comes to labeling people. Labeling only allows us to see a single-minded view that the label portrays, which usually stands for an incomplete, inaccurate definition that we create to understand that label.

Let them be. No judging, no stereotyping. We are all fighting battles of enormous magnitude and repercussions. No one needs more toxic air to breathe.

2 comments:

AY said...

(stumbled to this entry through 20somethingbloggers)

I totally agree with what you have to say here. We as humans seem to like to label everything. We like categorizing people based on appearance, careers, personality, education, etc. But that immediately limits our view about that particular person; once you mentally label someone, it's hard to see past that label.

But just as damaging as labeling others is when we label ourselves. When we stick labels on ourselves, like "I'm just a shy person" or "I'm not really creative", whether in our minds or out loud, we are helping to make that label a reality.

I also just finished "Blink" recently myself :)

misteca said...

it's also us creating our own worst enemy. the power of negative thoughts is unbelievable!

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