No Testing, No Tasting, Easy Peasy!

My favourite alcohol bottle has a label – It reads peter scot and tells the world that its alcohol content is 47.5%. Peter to my mind is distinguished, Scottish sounding and smooth and doesn’t leave a hangover. It’s true I don’t have one this morning but that is because I didn’t visit Peter last night!

 My neighbour’s house is called Prem Vihar – It’s on the pillar.  To my mind the couple inside built this house with their hard earned money brick by brick and they are very loving couple. I’d seen them so too. But not anymore. They are separated. The house is still called Prem Vihar.

I have a pair of shoes that have a black panther drawn across them and are empossed Puma. I did not wear them today as you may get the impression – that I am quick on the sports field.  In actual fact the only animal I can beat in a running race is a tortoise!

Now a days everything has a label. Just visit the supermarket and you will get an idea of the number of labels in existence - Low fat, high fat, Clean active and so on. The label tells you at a glance what to expect of its contents, or if doesn’t, you associate characteristics with the label, based on past experience in your head so that you can make instant decisions rightly or wrongly. The label also plays a big part in adding to the cost or subtracting from it.

But it’s not only inanimate objects that have a label.  Human labels are a plenty. Bully, Dumbo, Fatso, nerd, sicko, psycho, miser, athlete, beauty, bomb, sexy.. even Religious and Racial labels – Hindu, Muslim Christian, White black, Chinky. All Labels – Have you not been labelled – maybe in school, in college at the work place and even in the family – If you do things a particular way always and with attention to detail,  your family labels you an ocd.

So whats wrong with labelling? First lets get whats right. It helps you categorise things and people alike.  Like the books in your school bag – so that you can pull out the Maths notes book in an instant when the teacher says so and the Maths text book when she says so!

 So that you can make instant judgements. Let’s say you want to get your son or daughter married and you are out looking for a spouse.  You decide what’s good for him or her based on the label. If you are a Christian – then any other religious label may not do because of differences in perception, culture and attitude to spousal duties? Pre conceived yes, Judgemental yes, but easy isn’t it?

No tasting, no testing, no work involved just decision making.  Easy Peasy

Secondly if the labels are positive – studious, early bloomers, excellent with numbers, good cricket potential, if the labels are repeatedly sounded, in the presence of the labelled, then it sinks into them and they tend to become what they are naturally not perhaps. So its good. This was seen in an experiment by Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson – They have a long term positive effect.

It would be impossible to catalogue the information we process during our lives without the aid of labels like "friendly," "deceitful," "tasty," and "harmful." But it's important to recognize that the people we label as "black," "white," "rich," poor," smart," and "simple," seem blacker, whiter, richer, poorer, smarter, and simpler merely because we've labeled them so.

Is it simpler to put ourselves and others into boxes of predetermined ideas? Is it easier to think we really know ourselves and others than to actually know them, genuinely and intimately? It seems for most of us that it is. But really, it is not.

How many times have you been labeled –‘slow’, ‘fat’, ‘bad’, ‘selfish’, ‘lazy’, ‘incompetent’? How has it felt? How has it held you back, kept you down? Have those labels – and countless more – made you feel unworthy, insignificant, ashamed, disregarded, suspect? Have they made you feel restricted, inauthentic, imprisoned?

I was a fatty when I was in School and more often than not, though I was pretty good at certain sports like TT Badminton and cricket I was left out of most teams as the captains felt by the look of me that I would not be able to deliver. Judgements were made, and decisions were arrived at on the spot. No testing no Tasting – Easy Peasy. But they affected me!

Can you tell a man or woman’s belief system from the way they look or the colour of their skin. These categories no basis in biology because all blood is red but they nonetheless go on to determine the social, political, and economic wellbeing of their members.

As Ronit Baras puts it, we can all too easily get "trapped by labels". Most troubling, these labels can follow us throughout our lives, long after the label has been lifted.

It’s not only that others label us. We label ourselves Are you a successful career woman, a super mom, a loser, an ugly person, a sex bomb, a “fatty”, a good-for-nothing? We put ourselves in boxes trying to define who we are. We do it to others, and we do it to ourselves. Whether positive or negative, what we whisper to ourselves every day has a great influence on our self-concept, and dictates the direction of our thoughts and actions. More so than the labels attached to us by society. We are what we think we are.

Life is complex and labelling makes things easy.  So my advice to you is label, but label positively.  Yourself and others though labelling others is best avoided – especially children. You live up to the labels you attach to yourself. If you think you’re a winner, even if you’re not, you will act and think like a winner – until you eventually become one. People who like themselves are generally kinder and have a positive outlook. Those who think of themselves kindly are happier.  So  when you look in the mirror next label yourself,  Achiever, Beautiful, Generous, Giving, Compassionate, Friendly, Capable, Intelligent, Smart, etc and youll be a winner.

No testing, No tasting, Easy Peasy.