As the festive season was approaching, Mary decided to spring clean her house. She took things out, old wires, electronic stuff, socks, shoes, clothes, glassware, linen, books etc which were lying scattered around and put them in the garage. She then went through the sorting out process of the things that she wanted to keep and those she that could possibly give away to others who would make better use of the items or trash them. As she was going along, she figured out that it would be easier for her to sort those things by putting them in boxes / containers and labelling them as it would make it easier to identify whats in what. Out she went to the market, got different sizes of boxes and containers and decided which box would be most appropriate for holding which item. As she started putting away the socks, shoes , clothes, linen, wires etc, she ensured that she labelled them simultaneously. That kinda made sense. That’s exactly what I would have done too. And that’s exactly what most people would do too.
My teacher then paused and asked me this question – From the boxes / containers perspective, they could have held anything in them. Did they choose to limit what could be put in them or did Mary choose to limit what they could hold by labelling them? The answer was very simple but it was a far deeper question – as this is exactly how we choose to live our lives. We like to label everything, we like to put everything in boxes. Its convenient to do that and when someone questions those labels, we can go to any length to justify those labels.
Based on our mindset we label people as good or bad, capable or incapable, pessimist or optimist or realist, atheist or religious, lazy or hard working, lovable or unlovable…We label things as good or bad, right or wrong, moral or immoral. And once we have put labels on people, we continue to justify those labels in our head all the time, share those very labels with other people to influence them. But most importantly – we label ourselves the most. We put ourselves in boxes which are often labelled by other people and we continue to look at our own selves with an eye of self doubt. Am I good enough, did I work hard enough, do I look beautiful enough, am I kind enough, am I wise enough….
The boxes possibly could not hold a lot of things as well – like liquid, or bigger, bulkier items. And its the same with us. David Allen rightly said, that “we can do anything, but we can’t do everything.” We can’t be everything we want to be, but we can be something that is aligned to who we are deep within, what we are good at, what we love doing. Do not start with I can’t do….but start with I can do.
Notice how labelling is instantaneous, like a second nature. As you go along today, practice being mindful of this habit and then gradually let it go and experience a deep sense of liberation and freedom in noticing things and people (including yourself) for what and who they are, devoid of any labels.