Untitled (Intentionally)

We like to make categories. 

Whether we’re the sort of people that use sticky notes for every little aspect of our lives or just throw our stuff on our desk when we get to work, there is always some part of us that wants order. We separate our days, our friend groups, our food groups, and our clothes.

Even moreso, we organize people.

Whether we like admit it or not, we make categories for people. Race, religion, and careers are the most obvious categories in the adult world, but there are even more categories within the original groups. Each person has a subset of a subset of a subset of a group we collect them inside. 

And us? 

Well, we give ourselves the most labels out of the whole bunch. We sit in a room of people who share most of our labels, but then you suddenly realize that no one shares a majority of your titles, and you panic.

Do I even belong here? we ask.

That was my experience teaching Religious Ed at Notre Dame for the first two weeks. Everyone in the room was either a theology major, theology graduate student, or had campus ministry experience. Me? I was a Biologist who loved Jesus and had little to no experience in administration. My work with Belmont Catholic hardly involved the administration, and I pretty much got pushed out when my opinions did not align with others.

How could they justify letting the “chill” Catholic teach these potential members of the Church what it means to be Catholic?

I felt unqualified, undeserving of such an honor.

And yet…

My lack of label was what made it possible for me to my job.

When we try to fit the labels society puts on us, we miss out on the opportunity to share our lives with others. We tell ourselves that if we are a certain race, religion, major, professional, etc that we have to act that way. We can’t possibly share an entirely unique opinion. That would mean that we would have to go against what is expected of us! 

What if we disappointed our peers by not being what they expect?

Trick question.

When we surprise others in authenticity, we make the world a brighter place.

No one has ever been disappointed by a genuine person.

Truthfully, no one can see your label but you. No one can fully contain you in a box. In order to do so would require these folks to spend a lifetime building a box that would fit your label to the letter. And while we think we can categorize everyone, we know that it is impossible to fully define people in labels.

So the real question is…

Why wear a label that only we can see?

The display panel that we put on our hearts only blinds people from seeing the beauty of who you truly are. No one cares that much about your favorite food or your favorite form of prayer or your favorite class in undergrad. What people care about is who comes in to their lives and what that person can offer them.

No one can offer all of the same things as you.

Let’s take my faith sharing as an example. I recently shared in a beautiful conversation with a friend about how they like to talk to me about faith. They shared with me how they liked that I was different from all of the Christians they knew, and they felt like I was just a normal person. They could talk to me freely. It was not because I didn’t believe, but it was because I was honest about my relationship with Jesus.

I don’t have a label that justifies me sharing my faith. Yes, all Christians are called to act as Missionaries, but we cannot all do it in the same way.

My lack of label brings my heart to places that others may not be able to go. I can go in to a dungeon of scientific discovery with a Rosary, and while it may not fit, no one can deny that I am being true to what matters most. Not a soul can say that I am not being myself when I connect my faith to science. It’s what makes me who I am.

That’s the difference.

When we refuse to let the titles tell us what to do, we force people to find out why we do what we do. We force the world to see that there is more to the categories that we have created.

The person defines the labels.

So why wear one?

I’m not saying that it is easy to live without a label. Our categories help guide our social interactions, but they do not really help us find the truth about ourselves. As soon as the label is missing, we find ourselves a little lost, unsure of what we would have done otherwise. We ask ourselves if it would be better if we just tried to find a new label, or maybe find a new person to talk about our label with.

We get so caught up in our labels that we forget who we really are.

I think this is the most evident in the romantic realm.

We define ourselves by our past experiences, by the people we normally pursue, by the status we think we hold. Instead of following our hearts, we choose to fit what we think everyone else wants for us.

Maybe they have more virtue than us.

Maybe they have a better social status.

Whatever it may be, we tell ourselves that we wouldn’t fit in to their world, and we step away. Hearts break. People end up walking away from amazing experiences with wonderful souls all because of the labels we choose to wear.

Sometimes we view ourselves so low that we just accept the first person that comes our way.

We spend so much time beating ourselves up, staring at our labels, that we don’t see the point of pursuing someone anymore. If someone is willing to spend time with us, then we are more willing to give up our dreams for that short moment of companionship. It doesn’t matter that we don’t feel fully appreciated or understood; we felt important in that moment.

You are worth so much more than that.

Everyone has a “little yellow umbrella” that is worth fighting for, and that person is probably not under the label you made for yourself.

Don’t sell yourself short for a few moments of pleasure. You’re awesome, and you need to act like it.

There is so much more to living authentically than the romantic spectrum. Truthfully, any aspect of our lives can be improved by living our lives as we want to live and not taking anyone’s BS. If you don’t like how people see you, then you have to show them the truth about the larger category they put you in.

The only way that you can learn the truth is by encountering the real person.

And the only way you can show your true self is if you intentionally live untitled.

Be untitled intentionally so that others may share their lives with you. For real. You are worth a wonderful soul seeing you for who you are, remembering you, and actually putting forth an effort.

Real love, even mere friendship love, is taking off the labels and just getting to know a person. It is is showing that there is so much more to your life than what you do, what you like, and what you look like. What matters is who you are, and why you are that person. When you love someone for real, you allow them to challenge you, you allow them to ask why, and you give them a reason.

People define the labels, not the other way around.

If someone has a problem with that, then they can just get over it.

Because you shared the truth, and if that truth is too much, then those social circles, those relationships, those places of notoriety, those jobs….they weren’t worth it.

You are worth it.

"Everybody's been there, everybody's been stared down

By the enemy

Fallen for the fear and done some disappearing

Bow down to the mighty

Don't run, stop holding your tongue

Maybe there's a way out of the cage where you live

Maybe one of these days you can let the light in

Show me how big your brave is"

~Brave, Sara Bareilles