We are in the midst of a lovely (note sarcasm) election year. no matter what the outcome you may wish, an election year is not much fun. No one wants to see hours of ads for the opposing candidate or for either candidate depending on how you feel.
An election only magnifies what already exists in our culture. We see people based on labels: republican or democrat, liberal or conservative, white or black, rich or poor, christian or other. It sounds trite to say but we are all people, people who love, who work, who raise families, who contribute to society. We all have far more in common than we realize but labels keep us apart.
I personally have no use for labels. For most of my life labels have done nothing more than pigeonhole me into convenient boxes. I have had three types of labels that have followed me my whole life.
- Because I have a limp I have been labeled at worst as ‘crippled’, politically correct as ‘handicapped’ / ‘physically challenged’ or at the very best ‘worthy of pity’.
I have a limp it is true and I have been through a lot physically but the truth is that I don’t feel different from anyone else. My disability is obvious, one knows by the way I walk that I have suffered, but the truth is that we all have suffered in some way or another but not all of the evidence is that obvious. - Both my parents are artists and I was raised in a bohemian environment so I am labelled as too ‘creative’, ‘artistic’, ‘liberal’ or simply ‘irresponsible’, but just because I have a free, artistic nature doesn’t mean I’m going to miss deadlines.
I may be creative but am also an entrepreneur and very business focused, something I learned from my father, a fine artist. - I have always looked young, a blessing now, but in my younger years it was frustrating because my youthful looks meant I wouldn’t be taken seriously. Even now I have a ‘young’ manner in public situations. I am shy and reserved, so people think of me as a neophyte, someone less qualified until they know of my experience.
While it’s nice to look young, it’s not nice to be prejudged as to how much I know.
For me, none of these labels fit but labels are just that, a way to define each other but not necessarily the truth. We are far more similar than we would like to admit. If we could just look for the threads that connect us instead of the walls that divide us, we would be far more considerate of one another.
Photo © Eliza Alys Young
