Your age.

Your bio.

Your name.

Your race.

Your resume.

These are all your surface level attributes, these labels barely scratch the surface of who you really are.

There’s so much more to you.

Imagine for a moment you read the ingredients for a recipe. You’ll get an idea for all that constitutes that particular dish, but you won’t get an idea of the depth or range of flavors until you actually taste the food. And the same applies to you.

The labels that are used to describe you and everyone else make it easy for sorting and to put in categories.  The labels make life easier for the category makers because now they don’t have to spend time thinking, they can just pick the labels they like and discard the ones they don’t.

You know deep down that there’s so much more to you than the labels that are assigned to you, and there are times when you’ll also feel constrained by the labels. Almost everyone around you experiences similar frustrations too.

Just like there’s more to you, there’s more to others too. And the only real way to explore and understand others is to remove preconceived notions about the labels. You can do this by listening, and spending time connecting with those around you.  Once you begin to do this, you’ll find that others will be willing to do this for you too. And that’s when they’ll have the opportunity to learn that there’s so much more to you too.

P.S. Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it please share it with one person you love.