What usually happens when someone is given negative titles? Well, there are usually two differing directions between which an individual will find himself deciding. On one hand he might embrace it, on the other he might protest it; either way he ends up working much harder that he should to maintain an illusion.
If an individual is particularly sensitive to being seen in a negative light, you might find them protesting – often vehemently – the label that has been laid upon them. I don't want people to see me as a jerk, so I go out of my way to act nice to random folks that I come across so they will think some way about me. Now, I'm pumping on those levers as rapidly as I can, pressing buttons, turning knobs, and freaking out trying to disprove the negative label some ill-meaning person has stuck on me.
I don't want to be seen as a racist, so I surround myself with friends of a particularly victimized race so as to control that label. Everything I do around them is geared toward proving that I am not racist. I'm working those levers really freaking hard. Then, along comes Toto. Some guy, a member of that race, bumps into my car with a shopping cart, backs into me at the buffet table, or accidentally steps on my shoe in attempts at avoiding just that, then I suddenly show my truest colors and scream every slur I can think of at that one man. Now what? Just like the man trying not to step on my shoe, what you focus on you hit.
What about the man who embraces his label? Well, here is a man who cannot accept anything that is not that label. A man who has been labeled an asshole simply because someone didn't like his answer suddenly thinks, “Yes, I'm an asshole. Why would I deny it?” Then he goes out of his way to do things to prove that point. He indiscriminately kicks any small animal he can get close to. This makes it easier to do it to people. Then he becomes verbally violent and always thinking about ways to better insult people. This all works just fine, until that damned cairn terrier jumps out of the basket. Suddenly, he can't think of an insult because the person before him – he realizes – has just suffered a retaliatory attack from him that happened to point to the very thing that he knows all too well can bring his idea of a man to his very knees. Suddenly, the man behind the curtain is revealed.
The trouble – again – is the value we place on our ego. We attempt to generate and perpetuate this false image of who we want people to think that we are based solely on our fear that we could be irreparably damaged should they see precisely who we actually are. But, again, they literally have no power over us. Jesus said, “Do not be afraid of those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul.” If this doesn't make clear how the game is played, what will?
When one needs to be seen, don't you wonder what they're hiding? I address this concept in the next post. See y'all next week.
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