Society Given Labels Destroys #Potential
The Power of Labels
Labels are used to help us know or associate items. Show a red octagon and we expect others to know to stop. Show an arrow in any direction and we expect others to follow.
The same is true for products. For instance, GAP, Gatorade, Taco Bell, Chase, are all ways that we could identify clothing, drinks, fast food, or banking.
What about people? What about how we label people? Do our labels alter their lives? Does troublemaker, rough, worthless, or other term sabotage another’s real value?
When we label others as anything – rich, poor, successful, unsuccessful, or failure we are “boxing” that person into preconceived ideas. Imagine the world without King David (adulterer), Paul the Apostle (killer), Abraham Lincoln (business failure), Booker T. Washington (emancipated slave), Frederick Douglass (runaway slave), Thomas Edison (failed inventor), Theodore Roosevelt (sickly) or more current folks like Sir Richard Branson (stupid).
Learning to see others as more than their labels can help the “labeled” unlock their real potential.
Each of these people faced their own unique situations and circumstances to be known today – from failure to persecutor to slave to sick to stupid.
Who are you willing to take a chance on? What label are you willing to help destroy?
How do you help others overcome society given labels? (Please leave a comment below).