Blog

Labels That Define & Confine

7th Aug, 2017 / admin

A recent spate of losses (of life and health) in our family led to clarity on the label I have earned. I am the Dependable Rock. I am the one who can be counted on. What, I can be counted on, is fluid. To be supportive, to be sensible, to be accepting, to find a solution, to discover possibilities and so on.

 I felt pride that I was perceived as all of that. Yet, with it came a feeling of restriction. Of worry. Of being stuck. The label could evolve, but I doubt I can ever really defy it. It defines me. It imposes a sense of duty and fear of failure.

As I look around at the relationships in my life, I find I have branded several people as well. I pull them up when they fail to live up to that label.

“Amritha! Why are you so quiet today? You’re normally the life of the group.”

“John are you tired? We haven’t had a creative idea out of you the whole week”

“Kiran. It’s not like you to get so emotional. Would you like to take a break?”

How unfair is that! Label someone and then demand that they personify that label 24X7.

Look around at the relationships you have. How many of them have you boxed? So much so, that you never get the chance to realize that there are other aspects of that persona that can also be celebrated. Or that the person never has the freedom of feeling or behaving differently.

We do this labeling at home with our children, our partners, and at work. The effect can be subtle yet damaging.

My husband tends to throw his keys, wallet and watch at various spots as he walks into the house. There is no pattern to this. Except the next morning. While rushing to work he invariably cannot find one or the other. As a newly-wed I took great pride in telling him which corner of which shelf each item was. He loved how “observant” I was. I preened. As the years went by I began to find this morning drama irksome. He wasn’t bothering to keep away his stuff- despite my efforts at creating spaces for him to do so. He wasn’t even looking. He just stood in the middle of the house and yelled out “Have you seen my watch/wallet/keys?’ So now I started labelling him as lazy and inconsiderate. And the label became a part of several unrelated conversations that snowballed into arguments.

Somewhere along the way I realized I did not need to live up to this “observant” label anymore. I stopped making a mental note of where he dumped his stuff. So the next time he asked me, I had no answer. And soon he started finding his things on his own. (he still refuses to use a spot to keep it all).

Our relationship found other labels to argue over. Luckily none of them is too serious and none lasts for long. If I had felt compelled to live up to that label, the effect on our communication could have been more severe.

The damage a simple label can cause can be profound. So keep an eye out. Any label that lasts too long can become restrictive.

If you get labelled- enjoy it if it’s positive. Just make sure you do not become a victim of it.

If you label people, don’t pull them up every time they act out of character. Allow yourself to appreciate other dimensions of their being as well

This content was created for a Birla Sun Life Insurance web portal


[social_media_shotcode]