As I walk into my favorite record store, wearing a pink dress shirt and ripped jeans, I look around to see a bunch of dirty looks and confused eyes. I look down to see if I have something on my shirt or if I have something offensive written on my forehead. I have neither. As I walk to the used record bin I hear "what is she doing in here?". That was the moment when I realized I was given dirty looks and confused eyes because I was dressed in pink and had bright blonde hair. I started to think that maybe if I walked in wearing hipster jeans, circular sunglasses, and something black, I would've been greeted differently.

We live in a society that judges people by the way they look. If they wear black and have a lot of piercings, they are goth. If they wear glasses and carry books around, they are nerdy. If they wear sweats and are constantly slacking off in class, they are jocks. If they have blonde hair and wear pink, they are superficial and apparently don't belong in a record store. This sad and fast jump-to- judgement is mostly known as labeling.

Labeling is most common as we get older. Many teens and young adults are in a constant feud with themselves to find the perfect "label". They don't want to come off looking a certain way in fear of not fitting into one specific social group. Sometimes labels can cause two people that share the same personality to not be friends because they simply don't dress the same. It is crazy to think that we let ourselves be controlled by labels, why do we let ourselves do that?

I am a young adult. I love pink and dressing up. I love doing my make-up and hanging out with friends on the weekend. My favorite movie is Breakfast at Tiffany's. I have bright blonde hair. I go to community college and work at a hair salon. Sadly, with all that information that was just given, I would've been labeled as a girly-girl or a dumb blonde.

That is what labels can do but if someone would leave the status quo and learn more about me they would learn so much more. They would learn that I used to play soccer. I love music from all era's and thats why I collect records. I love to read books and my favorite author is Oscar Wilde. I have a 3.5 GPA and hope to get it up to a 4.0 and I have friends in all different social groups because labels don't determine who I am friends with.

So simply break the mold. Be friends with people that wear black or play sports. Be friends with people that love pink or do yoga everyday. Be friends with the girl that reads during your off periods or the boy that loves science. Be friends in different "labels" because what are you going to learn hanging out with people that all dress the same and do the same thing. Leave the status quo.