Remove Label Before Use

“What do you do?”

The classic conversation-starter. It begins with labels and ends with more labels for takeaway.

I’m a (insert label here).

Doctor. Athlete. Lawyer. Entrepreneur. Nurse. Marketer. Banker. Stay-at-home dad. Teacher. Grad Student. Barista. Fur Parent. And many others.

Nothing wrong with it, really. In fact, it’s quite useful for most of us. For the person asking the question, labels are a quick way to identify and remember someone. For the person answering, labels are a convenient way to help people understand who they are. It just works.

In the social context, we may consider labels necessary in representing our many identities. Imagine trying to remember all the dimensions of a single person and distilling them into one concept. Conversely, imagine trying to explain your entire being to a person you just met. It will be overwhelming and almost impossible, not to mention weird (goodbye, social life).

So let’s try to look at this solely from a personal context. Let’s have a conversation with ourselves, and let’s begin with this question:

“If you take away all your labels (and identities), what remains?”

• The immigrant doctor who couldn’t practice.
• The athlete with a career-ending injury.
• The lawyer who lost his license.
• The entrepreneur who had to take a job.
• The nurse whose application was rejected by the hospital.
• The marketer who was transferred to the sales department.
• The banker who got laid off.
• The parent with an “empty nest”.
• The teacher working at a school that closed.
• The grad student who had to pause his/her studies.
• The barista who had to take the dishwasher job.
• The fur parent whose dog passed away.

Difficult to answer. It will take a while.

But I have more questions. Here they are:

• Why do we equate who we are with what we do?
• Why do we use nouns instead of adjectives or verbs?

I’m clearly no expert in this space, but I have a theory.

What if we dig deeper, beneath the convenient labels, beneath the identities we attach to our being? What will we find?

• We could find things we care about.
• We could discover our passions.
• We could realize our purpose (more on this another day)

Could, not would. It’s still a theory. But a theory worth considering, don’t you think?

• The person who keeps people healthy.
• The person who loves to compete.
• The person who defends the defenseless.
• The person who creates things.
• The person who cares for others.
• The person who creates awareness for something.
• The person who helps people build wealth.
• The person who nurtures others.
• The person who helps others learn.
• The person who loves to learn.
• The person who shares his/her love for coffee.
• The person who cares for animals.

That’s a lot of whos. And these could be the answers to my first question, right?

It seems to me that, while labels and identities are useful, we gain nothing by attaching our entire being to them. More importantly, having a clear understanding that we are not what we do makes it easier for us to recover from identity setbacks —in fact, it encourages us to evolve.

Let’s try this:

• List down all your labels and identities.
• Now, ask yourself what makes them yours.

Get to know yourself beyond the labels. Have fun?:)

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