“Are you a tea person, or a coffee person?”
I was asked this once, and I was gobsmacked. So I gathered my jaw off the floor, unfurrowed my eyebrows and after an awkwardly long pause, I stammered, “Both, I guess, haha.”
Yes, I know, it sounded like an innocent question, but It was the choice of words that really got under my skin, and it still sticks in my mind to this day.
I felt boxed in. Pigeonholed.
As if someone is trying to pin me down. A ‘coffee person’ hmmm? A ‘tea person’ hmmm? Oh, I see. So you’re that type of person.
I get it, it’s in our analytical nature to label; categorize and identify. It’s an instinctive mechanism as old as time. It can potentially help us gain new connections by finding your tribe, or gauging where you are on the food chain. ‘What’s this?’ ‘Oh, looks like danger’. ‘I’m outta here’. It helps us gain a slightly better understanding of the world.
But here’s the danger: What if someone else is labeling and defining your world for you? Even worse, what if you start believing these labels? Your world gets smaller. You start acting in ways that aren’t yourself, because these labels are telling you how to act. The foundation of your identity is being pulled out from under your feet and you feel like you’re standing on shaky ground.
I’m sure we’ve all encountered some of these labels before:
- Lifestyle: Minimalist, foodie, vegan, hippie, one-percenter, prepper
- Diet: Vegan, paleo, keto
- Career: 9-5ver, side-hustler, entrepreneur
- Investment: Value investor, day trader, stock picker
- Travel: Backpacker, traveler, expat
- Personality: Introvert, extrovert
- Generational: Millennial, Boomer, Gen-XYZ
- Political: Left, right, I’m not even going to go there.
…and these are just warmups.
All these labels and the false assumptions that they usually come with, close the world, your world, right up. And sometimes, they’re contentious, and it feels like you’re coiled up, bracing to fight some kind of invisible enemy. Suffocating.
So how do we deprogram ourselves to open our minds up again, regain that lightness of thought, and reclaim your own story? Here are 4 ways.
1. Here’s an easy one. Knock off the ‘er’, ‘ist’, ‘ism’ ‘type’ or whatever identifier and just use verbs. This is because it takes the ‘YOU’ out of the equation. You’re doing an action, but you are not the action, and all the preconceptions that come with it.
I’m an ‘engineer’. I don’t know how many times people have said, ‘so you must be good at math’, or ‘you must be doing well’. Already the preconceptions stonewalls any deeper conversation.
Nowadays, I simply say, ‘I solve the problems at the plant’. That deflects the attention off of any preconceived labels.
Recognize this and drop the identifier.
2. Have a real conversation, you might find there’s more common ground than labels can pinpoint.
So I met a guy through tennis, let’s call him Tim. My first impression of him was that he was a bit cold, and he had some ‘choice’ political views, to put it in a nice way. In my mind, I had some ‘choice’ labels for him. I could have cast him off, but I respected his competitiveness on each point. So we got talking some more and figured out that Tim just consumed too much news and needed a hobby. Tennis was it. We slowly warmed up to each other a few weeks later, and Tim and I have been having great chats about tennis and life ever since.
3. Less social media.
This is a tough one. What’s the average time people spend on social media? More than we like to admit. With each flick of the finger, there’s another label thrown at you, and whether you realize it or not, we absorb them like a sponge.
Start small. Start with getting rid of the apps on your phone. Create friction and build some obstacles against access. Check only once a week on your laptop.
4. Try to get out of your comfort zone.
Challenge and test labels. You’ll find that they’re baseless or not at all true whatsoever.
After that year with eczema, spending almost a year away from work and with my confidence shaken up, I thought, that’s it, I’m an introvert. A couple of years later, when I was back on my feet, an opportunity came up to be the MC at my company’s Christmas party and I wholeheartedly jumped on it. Why the hell not? I was rockin’-and a-shakin’ that night, all in a second language. Had a blast. Pats on the back. Introvert? Extrovert? Whatever.
So how’s that for the first post? After juggling a few ideas for a while, I chose this as the first, and the best way, to kick off this Magnificent Life site.
Don’t let anyone tell your story. Smash those labels and get over any label that’s keeping you stuck. You’ll find whole new worlds will open up in your magnificent life.
And I’ll leave you with this:
“Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)”
Walt Whitman
About the picture: A simple, delicious, juicy orange brings so much mouth watering, slurpy joy.