Labels limit life

After judgment, denial of responsibility, and demands, the fourth kind of language that separates us from each other is the use of labels.

No two people experience the world in the same way. We each have a unique picture, or model, of the way things are.

The mental model that a person raised in a rural farming community has about the world differs immensely from the mental model of a person raised in Beverly Hills, or Calcutta, or inner-city Baltimore.

Both psychology and quantum physics tell us that we don’t experience the world directly, we experience a subjective, relative representation of the world through our nervous system.

Quick example: a chair.

From your perspective, a chair is approximately thigh-high and useful for sitting. To an ant, a chair is a gargantuan tower. A neutrino, however, is so small that it would whizz right through a chair. To a neutrino, a chair’s atoms would seem to be miles apart.

The models created by our perspectives, history, and identities, are important, they help us make sense of everything, yet it’s common for people to mistake their model of the world for the real world.

Because we need models to understand our experience, our language has developed in such a way that we use labels as shortcuts to communicate meaning.

But your model is not my model. Your labels mean different things to you than they do to me.

Worse, labels, and the mental models they represent, can severely limit our ability to see beyond absolutes.

“I’ll never be good at math.”

“He sucks.”

“She can’t stand me.”

“Everyone enjoys a party.”

There is good evidence that language affects how we perceive. In other words, our language doesn't just express ideas but actively shapes them.

Most of us are familiar with the deleterious effects negative labels can have:

“They’re stupid and lazy.”

“What a bitch.”

“He’s a terrible leader.”

When we put people in a box, our mental model keeps them there, unlikely to change. And if we know one thing about the universe, it’s that everything is always changing.

Few people realize how even “positive” and “neutral” labels also limit our understanding of what’s possible.

When we say things like…

“Latinos are hard-working.”

“Asians are good at math.”

“She’s a great leader.”

…we are still putting others into a one-dimensional, life-limiting box, and preventing ourselves from seeing reality beyond our mental model.

If you tie a rope to a baby elephant’s leg and attach it to a big tree, when it grows to be an adult, it will not walk away, even though it could snap not just the rope but the tree, because it lives in a mental model. It’s a prisoner of its own mind.

Ditch the labels and whole new possibilities will open up.