Straight. White. American. Female.

These are all words  that are used to describe me on a daily basis.

Wife. Mother. Grandmother. Daughter. Sister. Writer. Photographer. Artist. Business Women. Publisher. Singer. Activist…

And the list goes on and on and on… Yet we are all so intent on classifying not only ourselves but each other with such limited labels. Why do we do this? Are the first 4 words the only ones that  really matter? Or should we expand our minds and look beyond the obvious into the hidden and obscure?

We live in a society that is hell bent on putting everyone in categories. White. Black. Mixed. Foreign. Christian. Muslim. Straight. Gay. Bi-Sexual. Gender Fluid. Male. Female. Bi-Polar. Schizophrenic. This. That. The other. And because of this incessant need to place people in tiny little neat boxes, including ourselves, we spend so many years of our lives trying to figure out who we are by society’s standards instead of just living our lives. And I personally have begun to see this practice more and more. We have kids who are bullied to death because they don’t fit into a certain type of box at school. We have people who define themselves by their mental illness. We have kids who are hospitalized because of the strain of trying to define who they are is so overwhelming and disturbing. We have adults who bully each other online because the thought of someone being not like them is so frightening and disturbing to them. And this has to stop.

Imagine a world where we just are who we are. Where we don’t feel the need to be anything other than our magnificent, beautiful, and original selves. A place where our differences don’t have to be defined just celebrated. A place where we are judged by our deeds instead of our outside obvious appearance.

So before you feel the need to define yourself to the world or judge someone else for their obvious labels, take a moment  and take a deeper look and realize that those obvious labels are just the tip of the surface and that there is a plethora of labels that are hidden and so much more important than the obvious.

Peace, Love and Understanding…