What's in a Label?

We’ve all heard it a million times, I’m sure, how rude it is to label people. That it’s mean, bullying, narrowminded, onandonandonandon… But did you ever stop to think just who it is that we slap the most labels on? 

I label myself more than I do anyone else. No sooner do I introduce myself to someone and strike up a conversation than I begin tacking on labels—“I’m a nerd; a bookworm; a cook; a preacher’s kid; a writer….” And in many ways there’s nothing wrong with that. Labels are probably the most common way to define ourselves. Certainly they’re the easiest. 

However, I began to notice a problem that, in many ways, I created for myself. I labeled, or defined, myself a “bookworm” and then began to try to conform myself to that label. I’d tell someone I loved to read, and inevitably the conversation would turn to books: favorites, recent reads.  And I’d try my hardest to come up with a classic or something intelligent like Beowulf or Dickens or Shakespeare, when the honest truth is that my recent reads shelf looks suspiciously like the young adult fantasy section in the library, and most of my favorite books are what a friend of mine once termed “brain candy”.  That’s not to say I don’t love and appreciate the classics , but they’re not my general reading material.

  I do the same thing with my bookshelves. When you walk into my room all you see are books, but the ones you see first are the hardcover, cloth bound classics that verge on antique; the complete works of Shakespeare along with the 2-volume Shakespeare lexicon (spine almost uncracked); the red-cloth bound pocket editions of Jane Austen. Huddled below eye-level are the less-impressive ones—Harry Potter, Georgette Heyer, Agatha Christie, romantic comedy, generic fantasy, Christian fiction.  But here’s the problem. I may manage to present myself initially as an academic-type reader, but talk with me too long, and it will quickly become obvious that I don’t really know what I’m talking about when it comes to the more obscure classic literature.

One of my favorite ( very non-intellectual) books actually phrased it really well: “It’s like waxing your mustache—once you’ve pretended to be something you’re not, you’ll be doing it for the rest of your life. It means something’s not quite right.” (The Little Lady Agency and the Prince by Hester Browne)

And I realized that with smart people I was trying to appear intelligent, with nerdy people I was trying to appear a nerd; but if the only reason they liked me was because of the appearance I was presenting, as soon as they saw the real me, they wouldn’t like me.  So I came up with something of a personal motto (at least I thought it was original, but have since seen pretty much the exact same thing attributed to someone named Andre Gide, but it was on Pinterest so who knows if it’s true or not); “I had rather be disliked for who I am than liked for something I’m not.”

You may be thinking, “Oh , too bad, so she’s not really a nerd or an intelligent reader, so what?” But there are other labels that I give myself that I then try to conform to. I’m a pastor’s daughter and, despite the stereotype of the “wild child”, there are certain things that are a part of that “label”.  I sing in the choir; I work in AWANA; I try to talk to visitors at church. Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with doing those things. They’re things I should do. But do I do them because I want to, or because they’re what a pastor’s daughter does? If I do those things to conform to an image, it really does mean that “something’s not quite right.” 

What about what a “Christian” does? Do I love people, witness, hold my tongue, read my Bible, pray, participate in a Bible study, because that’s really what I want to do, or because I think that’s what a Christian does, and if I don’t do those things, other Christians won’t like me or will judge me? And if the latter is the case, then my heart needs to change. 

Overall though, the biggest thing I’ve learned is to be willing to be myself, even at the risk of violating a self-imposed stereotype, because otherwise I’ve trapped myself into what is, essentially, a lie.