Feeling Stuck? Check Your Labels.

How labeling yourself leaves you stupid and stuck.

Watch the video.

How are those labels working out for you?

Democrat or Republican, Buddhist or atheist, intellectual or blue collar — brand yourself with any of these and you become a bit dumber. The more labels you strap on, the more sclerotic your thinking, and the stupider you are. 

We lose the ability to think clearly about anything that’s part of our identity. If you adopt a political party, for instance,  denying part of its creed — or even questioning it — causes cognitive dissonance that’s too uncomfortable for most people to bear. So we end up outsourcing our thinking to external authorities who don’t share our values.

Finding paths forward through the minefield of labels becomes harder with every new addition. 

Socrates was pronounced the wisest man in Athens by the Oracle of Delphi. Yet he insisted he knew little more than that he knew nothing. Socrates was the prototypical label-lite man.  Instead of concretizing his identity, he questioned the truths others proclaimed and found few held up to scrutiny. 

A lack of labels won’t paralyze you. You don’t need to brand yourself a vegan to find factory farms abhorrent and avoid eating meat. You can worship as you see fit without getting wrapped up in dogma. You might find your government problematic or think the death rate of minorities in police custody is unacceptable without tattooing MAGA or Black Lives Matters on your arm. 

Discard your labels and a world of possibilities opens up. You can suddenly reexamine everything you thought you believed as a free agent without vested interests — like Socrates. 

You may discover that a logjam in your thinking suddenly gives way, and a new path out of the morass opens.