IS IT POSSIBLE TO LIVE YOUR LIFE WITHOUT LABELS ?

     I have an organizational problem. I have to be organized. It drives me crazy to have to search for items I know I have, but can not seem to locate. I have been that way my entire life.

    I was in the workshop last weekend sorting hardware. You know; nails, screws, nuts, bolts, and washers. I put them in piles according to size and type, then deposited them in their own individual glass jars. I then got out
my trusty label maker and proceeded to label each and every container.

    I thought back to the old days when the only way to make labels was using the old DYMO Label maker. Remember those things? It looked like a gun and you rotated a wheel to the letter you wanted, then you pushed the trigger. It would impress the letter on a little strip of plastic. Then you moved on to the next letter, and the next.

    Nowadays you have many options to make labels. You can use a computer or you can hand write onto a tiny peel off label. I even have a little tiny label maker that looks like a small keyboard. It works very well. But I digress.

    I realized that we label everything from hardware in the workshop to people on the street.

    I got to thinking, 'Is it possible to live your life WITHOUT labels.'

    We label and organize everyone into a compartment. Republicans, Democrats, Liberals, Conservatives, Blacks, Whites, Hispanics, Christians, Jews, and Muslims. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. We label music. Country, Rock, Christian, Soul (oops, I am showing my age) Rap, Jazz, and so on and so forth. We are no longer Americans. We are Italian Americans, Asian Americans, African Americans, German Americans.

    News flash. I am not any of those. I am an American. Period. The fact that my mother's family came from Germany and my father's came from England has nothing to do with me. I came from Indiana. Does that make me a 'Hoosier American'?

    We label people even before we know them. As a society we pass judgement long before we even speak to someone. We see them on the street and immediately judge them. I do it too. I hate tattoo's and I judge everyone who has one. We call people fat, ugly, too short, too tall, too religious, not religious, on and on and on we go. Dr. Martin Luther King said it best fifty years ago, when he spoke at the Lincoln Memorial "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character” I guess Dr. King didn't like labels either.

    I am sorry to say that regardless of the progress of the last fifty years, we are not there yet.
       

    Here is your assignment for the week. Think before you speak. Try not to put any Kind of label on the people around you. It will be harder than you realize. Do this for one day, just 24 little hours. You might surprise yourself.
    And if you get through one day, try it for another day.