First impressions. It’s hard to restrain myself from making snap judgments about people when I first meet them.
Worse is when I settle for my shallow analysis and end up labeling folks.
We’re all complex, all of us alike yet different from each other, so I doubt anyone appreciates my boxing them into a label. Moreover, embracing knee-jerk categorizing limits me from enjoying all the marvelous aspects of the people I meet as well as learning the really good stuff from them.
Alas, training myself to stop being an automaton seems impossible.
Not so! There’s hope, thanks to this consciousness-raising site founded by a wise new friend. Drop Labels features videos of people discussing how being labeled has hurt them. The site goes above and beyond threadbare definitions of types of labels. For instance, this man has found that he hates being labeled as ‘the man with cancer’ …
Do you label? Have you been labeled?
The issue of labels and labeling others lies at the root of the cancer that destroys our relationships, communities, and entire nations.
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When i think of not wanting to be labeled by my cancer experience, the phrase i use is, ‘I don’t want to be defined by it.’ I hope it isn’t the most interesting thing about who i am.
Not denying or suppressing the cancer aspect, though, has allowed me to connect with others (whether survivors themselves or not) i might not have otherwise, or connect in a unique way.
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So true to hear from someone who has gone through this already. I like the phrase you use, Katherine. Smiles and best wishes, Robin
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Thank you, Robin, and the same to you.
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You make a good point – telling people can lead to great things as easily as not. When I first had cancer, I worried about being labeled it, about being watched like a ticking time bomb. The word ‘remission’ makes me feel especially that way.
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I don’t label people, I know we have to live or work with someone for a least a few months before getting to know how they really are !
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I wish everyone had the same attitude
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👍
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http://ninja150ss.com
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Amazing
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Can we really?
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we are labeled here by caste in our country.. sometimes.. its a good thought you portrait it through this blog.. ☺️
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All of us get labeled once in a while ….poit is to keep your head high and carry on doing what one think right
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I think we’ve all been labelled – good or bad – over the years. Some are hurtful, some are benign. The hard part is stopping ourselves from doing it … it seems to be human nature to ‘organize’ our world into categories.
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da-AL, you are so right about labels being hurtful! People need to use names and not use external description nor “labels.” Wonderful and great thinking this.
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