“You’re too sensitive, dear, you need to learn not to let anything affect you!” “You’re too tough, you scare people!” “You seem too elitist!” “Your expectations are too high; lower your standards!” “You always look too put together; wear some torn socks once in a while, so you seem more human!”
These are just a few of the labels, comments, and sometimes accusations I’ve heard over the years.
Has no one ever told you that you’re too… sensitive, impulsive, aggressive, arrogant, empathetic, indifferent? Don’t worry, there’s still time; don’t be too relieved.
No matter what we do, we all end up with a few labels stuck on us. It’s like the labels on jars of jam. My grandmother and her friends made jams and preserves. They collected jars throughout the year, washed them thoroughly, removed the old labels, and then, in the fall, filled them up. The handwritten labels—plum jam, green walnut jam, rose petal jam, sherbet, cornelian cherry compote—were neatly stuck on and the jars arranged on the shelves in the pantry with an order that made me marvel. Not that I’ve ever been able to organize things so well; my version of order is more relative.
I remember once, when I was a child, my mother asked me to organize the wardrobe while she was at work. I swear I tried my best—I took everything out, folded each item, and put them back on the shelves. When my mother came home, she asked why I hadn’t organized it. I was stunned. I had worked hard, but somehow, it wasn’t apparent.
But getting back to the point, labeling the jars made sense. Grandmother needed to know where to find what she needed. Otherwise, there would be chaos.
It’s the same with people. We have this need to put each other in little boxes: that one’s aggressive, this one’s impulsive, she’s too sensitive, he’s too indifferent, and many more.
One of the cards in the Dixit game shows a person in motion with sticky notes all over them, like little post-its. There’s nothing written on them. That’s how we are, with these metaphorical labels that someone occasionally writes a word on. We wear them; we’re all of them and none of them at the same time. Behind each label is a person we sometimes fail to reach. In our daily rush, there’s little room for honest conversations, attention, patience, discovery, appreciation, or exercises in admiration.
Maybe we are (too) sensitive at times, impatient in others, indifferent, distant, humble, calm, gentle, or passive. Maybe we all have a bit of everything, keeping it all in balance until a moment comes when someone adds the last straw, and an aspect, a facet of who we are, emerges. The diamond that each of us is has many facets. It’s not just one thing or another. We all have bright parts and shadowy, perhaps even dark, sides. We keep them in balance, but sometimes they show up and surprise others. And there’s always someone ready with a label on their tongue, just waiting to say, “too…!”
Our unconscious mind is mysterious; it makes 90% of our decisions without us realizing it. The brain is bombarded with 11 million bits of information every second, but we can only process 40. We’re wired to seek the path of least resistance, to use past experiences to make assumptions and create order in our world. There are advantages to this: decisions made in the past help us choose fruits from a particular place, seek advice from specific people, trust a friend, take the subway instead of driving, or drive without consciously thinking about every move.
But relying only on these well-worn paths would be limiting; it would be like looking at the world through a keyhole. We risk falling into the trap of prejudices.
Especially when it comes to people, it’s worth leaving the labels behind, opening the doors of our minds, and being curious to find out who stands before us.