For many years, I was a single mother of twins, but no longer. Soon I will be newlywed again. I am a personal trainer, an optimist, a love junkie, and a closet hippie. I am all of these things, but none of them really defines me. I am not always optimistic. I am not always anything.
Let's bring awareness to the limitations of our labels. They cannot accommodate life's variables, and the variability of our own beings. Let's avoid the use of words like "always" and "never," and judgments that close doors on the possibility of change. Instead of declaring someone a "jerk," perhaps we can consider that he seems unhappy, or that maybe it's a trigger inside of us that makes us react the way we do; that maybe there's more to what we see than we can possibly understand. Let's cut the world a break and allow for the possibility that we don't ever know the whole story, even with ourselves. How we behave and the ailments we suffer from are circumstances of our lives, but they are not who we are. We can have issues and struggles. We need not be them. We are bigger and greater and full of more variation and changeability than any label can possibly encompass.
I will refrain from labeling myself today. I will refrain from labeling those I encounter, and the circumstances of my life. I will allow for all possibility. I accept that I have a limited view of things, and there's likely more to it than I can understand.
