It’s natural for people to consider themselves as different, as an individual. We’ve been raised to think that way, and it’s been a part of our individualist culture. We pride ourselves on being able to do something all on our own, having the ability to accomplish anything by ourselves.
Ever since we sat in classrooms we’ve been told “everyone is different” and “everyone has their own special talent.” It gives us extra comfort knowing that we have something unique so we don’t feel like wasted space when we don’t score well on a test or mess up in a sports game.
When we were still kids, we’ve been often asked what we want to be when we grew up.
“I want to be a football player!”
“I want to be a teacher!”
“I want to be a scientist!” That was me at age six.
Although many of us are now leaving our teenage years behind, we still find ourselves holding onto this desire. We still want to be special, and we still seek to make ourselves someone different from other seven billion people we share this planet with.
I mean, after all, we don’t want to end up realizing we’re another average Joe or Jane. Imagine finding out you’re just a regular person. We can’t be. We were told we were special for years. Why would they lie to us like that?
I’ve been living and learning just as much as the next person, but as I continue on with my day to day activities, it’s come to my attention that the current culture of the U.S. is very demanding on being different. What makes you stand out? Why should I hire you and not Mr. Adam Smith who has the exact same qualifications? Are you special or not?
On the surface, this isn’t really a problem since self-improvement is vital to becoming an all-around better person, but at the same time this demand of being different has been breathing life into a subtle problem, a problem that is slowly creeping into every young person’s mindset. And this problem is only growing with constant exposure to, you guessed it, social media.
So what exactly is the problem? If I was forced to boil this article down a Facebook status, it would look something like this.
We’re using labels to keep people apart rather than bring them together, so stop arguing with people just because they’re not part of your special group.
It doesn’t seem like a big problem because we often don’t associate being different as a problem. But in the search for being special, we ironically place ourselves into groups (political, religious, social, etc.) where we surround ourselves with like-minded individuals. Seriously, that’s ironic.
Basically, I’m simply saying Christians like hanging out with Christians, Democrats like hanging out with Democrats, and feminists like hanging out with feminists.
“We’re all special because we’re Christian!”
“We’re all special because we’re Democrats!”
“We’re all special because we’re feminists!”
And so on and so forth. (These are just a few examples, and they don’t necessarily reflect on my own standings.)
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being part of any particular group -- unless you’re part of some sort of murder cult -- and most groups aren’t mutually exclusive. My beef with this use of labels is when we use it to condemn one another.
“Oh. You’re a ------? Well, let me just stop you right there and tell you why I absolutely hate your guts.”
I see this all the time on social media, where people, for lack of a better term, just talk crap about one another if they don’t fit the special group you belong to. You don't even need to know the person. You just need to know what group they agree with.
This isn’t the first time this judgment based on labels has ever happened in human history. We’ve been doing it ever since language existed, but I just want to point out how the many young adults of today have been obsessed with this label nonsense.
Seriously, I get it. You’re not Joe/Jane Doe. I have labels myself, but I don’t go around saying my entire identity is a multiracial male. I’m Brian. Hi. Nice to meet you. There’s more to me as a person than some ideologies I agree with, or my skin color and gender.
I’m just another person in the world who wants to be special, like you. That doesn’t mean I must have my identity helmed by a certain group of people. I can represent myself just fine, thank you. Many of us belong to certain groups, but at the end of the day we’re just people living in the same world. We’re not check boxes on a demographic survey.
So let’s stop demonizing and dehumanizing people for fitting into certain categories. That’s only the tip of the iceberg when getting to know a person.
If we can’t get over this desire to keep a label on ourselves (just so we can be special and different), we’ll just keep arguing with each other like we have been for the past decade. Then when a real problem comes around, we’ll be too busy squabbling to find a solution.
Like the old saying goes: Divide and conquer.
