Life on the Learning Curve
I have been (purposely) media deprived for years now. It’s just too depressing. Lately, despite my best efforts to keep it at bay the world has been closing in around me through the chatter of people I care about – colleagues, friends, and family. I haven’t been successful keeping my usual distance from the media hype. With this infiltration I fluctuate between being terrified, and understanding that everything is at it should be and all will be well. Living in these two polarities forces me to think about what I am thinking about. I am re-examining the words I use - the labels I place on my world, including myself, and my future. The words I choose impact the condition of my heart, soul, mind and ultimate happiness. I am making renewed effort to own the limitations that I put on myself and to claim higher and better thoughts for myself.
Imagine There are No Labels
I would say, “It’s easy if you try…” as John Lennon sings, but it isn’t really. Labels are necessary. We use labels to order and make sense of our world. We use them to communicate. A child learns: “This is a ball. It is round, smooth, blue, and polka dotted. It bounces but it’s a little flat.” Huh? All those? Well, yes. Those are all labels applied to an object to help us understand and to describe it.
Labels are words. Words are symbols for meaning. Thinking of all the different interpretations of words themselves it’s no wonder we have communication difficulties. The ball is blue. I picture sky blue, you think of navy blue. I see tiny polka dots; you see big ones. Different meanings behind the very same words.
We need labels, but at the same time they are also limiting. We tend to think that we know an object by its label. When we think we know we don’t have much need for further exploration. This came very clear to me in one of my coaching certification assignments. The assignment was to explore the items under my kitchen sink as a 3-year old would. Three-year olds can’t read labels. They don’t ‘know’, they explore. They have great curiosity. A child is brand new to the world and the world is brand new to it. Everything is an unknown - mysterious and magical.
So what did I find under my sink? I found little round balls that were many shades of brown with black pointy things mixed in. The little balls were shiny, smooth, and slippery, and scattered delightfully when I spread them all over the floor. (As an adult I would label that stuff birdseed.) I found green liquid that moved oh so slowly as I turned the bottle. It got sparkly bubbles in it when I shook it and they always went up no matter which way I turned it. The bubbles got littler the more I shook it. It was sticky. (Dish soap.) I found a square wiry thing that was stuck together with some blue stuff and smelled good. It poked my fingers when I touched it. (Brillo pad.) And on the exploration went.
At one point I picked up a bottle and began to read. “What is this stuff?” What was I reading? The label! A body of words that somebody slapped on there to inform me about the item in my hand. As I read my curiosity left. I set it aside immediately. Because I ‘knew’ it was of no further interest to me.
How many times do I do that with the people and even things in my life? How often do I lose interest and set a person or even an idea aside because I believe I already know who and what they are about?
Think for a moment about the labels you use for your boss/kid/parent/sibling/partner. Mean, lazy, ornery, loving, irresponsible, fair, honest, needy, picky? How does that label limit your view of them? Does it help you to explore possibilities, or do you tend to be dismissive because you think you know who and what they are? Have you slapped a label on them that proclaims, “This is what’s in here?” But when we do that, do we really know?
The media is perhaps THE best label-maker out there. As an interpretation machine it takes an event (Dow Jones drops) and labels it (worst recession since the Great Depression). It is our tendency to believe the ‘label’. And when we do does our believing then make it so?? It certainly limits our curiosity toward exploring other possibilities. Darn. Too bad.
What if instead we developed a deep curiosity toward all things? Just think of the possibilities that could come from exploring opinions which greatly differ from our own. It’s so much easier to label a person or an idea ‘stupid’ or ‘ignorant’ and not have to deal with a different view of things. There is always wisdom in a different viewpoint. Always.
Think of the renewed energy that could come by looking at all of your relationships with fresh eyes. Your boss/child/parent/sibling/partner is different than he or she was yesterday. Yes, it’s true. In what ways are they different? In what ways are YOU different than you were yesterday? How do the labels you apply to yourself limit you? What if you took off those labels and asked the question, “Who am I, really?”
From the Bookshelf
"The Little Prince"
By Antoine De Saint-Exupery
A tale of old that still delights the heart. The child prince curiously observes the ways of grownups. We are a curious lot. “Grownups never understand anything by themselves, and it is exhausting for children to have to provide explanations over and over again.”
In his simple ways the child prince teaches us about friendship and love. His soon-to-be friend exclaims: “For you I’m only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, we’ll need each other. You’ll be the only boy in the world for me. I’ll be the only fox in the world for you…”
This is one of my favorite books. A timeless classic.