Shower Thought 🚿 #4 — Labels, Labels Everywhere…
People are going to label you. It’s how you overcome those labels, that’s what counts. — One Tree Hill
Welcome to my fourth shower thought story. It’s a type of story where I try to share with you a particular topic that is bothering me. Usually, this thought is coming when I’m taking a shower; hence the name. Let’s start with this simple sentence:
Labels are everywhere, we can't get rid of it.We live in the world of labels, whether we like it or not. We use labels to distinguish one thing from another. One of the sensitive topics is the use of labels to describe people. It is considered inappropriate. But in my humble opinion: so what? We do have labels!
Some people find it offensive to address someone or to judge someone, based on their labels. Why do you need to feel offended? I’m Chinese, I have narrow eyes. That’s a fact I can’t avoid. People judge me to be cheap, and what have I said about that? “Oh, okay.” or “Yaudah” in Indonesian. I don’t need to deny nor confirm that statement. Let people have their own opinion.
Labels are just a tool to identify a group of something. That doesn’t mean you are the labels. But don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that we can freely use labels to prematurely judge someone. I’m just saying that labels are once again… just labels. It is just an identifier to identify you based on your physical traits, but it doesn’t identify you entirely.
My point is… we can’t get rid of labels. We can’t stop putting labels on people. We can’t avoid the fact that there are Chinese, Javanese, Papuan, Indian, African, Englishman, and so on. Humans have a need of putting labels to make a sense of something that looks similar. We have a tendency to group something. There’s even a label for things that can’t be labeled… it’s called miscellaneous.
Bonus
