Remove the label

I'm not sure what sparked the conept, but for some reason I've been thinking a lot lately about the labels we put on people.  I would really love to write a song with a title like "Remove the label".  But I lost my song-writing mojo long ago.  I'm so obsessed with this idea that most everything reminds me of it, almost like it's a confirmation of my thoughts.  It's only 6 AM, and I've already seen two things on Facebook that fueled the idea once again.

Two people took this in a negative way, and commented accordingly; obviously they've had a bad experience or two.  The strange thing is that when I first saw those words and then shared them, I was thinking of the good in people we never see, sometimes because we really don't try looking past the label.  But this line of thought may be caused by the label topic that's going around in my brain.

Think about the way you hear something about a person, let's say someone you've never met.  An acquaintance tells you a little tidbit about them, and you immediately accept the label and file it in your mind.  It could be anything:  "fat",  "lazy", "druggie"... or it might be something positive:  "sweet", "smart", "generous".  So when you think of this person from that time forward, if and when you meet them, you see the label first.  You had an opinion of her, bad or good, before you ever met her.  

Sometimes it's my own first impression that puts a label on someone, although I really don't socialize often enough to meet people and get to know them well.

Several years ago when I was attending a church a lot bigger than the one I attend now, my oldest grandson was given the lead in the Christmas play.  I was sitting on the sidelines during a rehearsal and struck up a conversation with the mother of one of the other kids, just she and I.  In the course of the conversation she said, "I didn't think you liked me."

I was flabbergasted, wondering what on earth would have given her that idea.  We barely knew one another.  Looking back, I imagine she took my standoffishness as dislike.  Strange thing is, she was someone I actually admired a lot!   Wrong label, lady!

If I would look past the negative labels we have given others, I would probably see so many positive attributes in their characters, it would more than make up for that critical label the world gave them.  I'm thinking of a local person, now dead, about whom I heard several disparaging comments over the years.  I accepted all that without even realizing it until one day I told Cliff, "You know, that man has never been anything but nice to us.  And if he has been that good to us, how can I talk negatively about him?"

As much as I'd like to, I just can't make a song come out of ideas like this any more.  So I'm sharing them here, as is.  I'm making a real effort to "remove the label", if it's a negative one, and look at the contents of the person's soul.  Appearances are deceiving.  For every fault most of us have, there is at least one virtue.  I want to concentrate on the virtues.

How about an appropriate corny old poem written by Louis C. Shimon:

Wouldn't this old world be better
If the folks we meet would say -
"I know something good about you!"
And treat us just that way?

Wouldn't it be fine and dandy
If each handclasp, fond and true,
Carried with it this assurance -
"I know something good about you!"

Wouldn't life be lots more happy
If the good that's in us all
Were the only thing about us
That folks bothered to recall?

Wouldn't life be lots more happy
If we praised the good we see?
For there's such a lot of goodness
In the worst of you and me!

Wouldn't it be nice to practice
That fine way of thinking, too?
You know something good about me;
I know something good about you.

Here's a thing I shared on Facebook today, simply because it made me laugh.  I hesitated sharing it because it's the kind of thing overly-sensitive people take to heart and then make the assumption you are talking about them, but hey!  I post my business all over the Internet just like I'm doing now, so if you WERE in my business, I wouldn't have grounds to complain.  I truly doubt that my insignificant life interests people enough to make them gossip much about me. 

By the way, if any of you has the idea I don't like you, you're probably way off base.  I'm just a little weird, and often give the wrong impression.  I like most folks.