Our Hurtful Need for Labels

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

We all wear labels: some we choose, others we get. But what happens when those words start defining us instead of describing us? This piece is a small reflection on peeling those layers back, and finding what’s underneath.

I’ve never quite felt like I belonged anywhere.

Understanding social expectations has always been a daily puzzle, like walking into a room where everyone’s performing an opera at double speed, and I’m expected to recite lines from a script I’ve never seen.

As a kid, that feeling was even sharper. Adults were quick to assign roles, to fit me neatly into a box. I loved sports, but I could also spend an entire day alone reading. To me, both felt natural. I just wanted to feel safe… to be myself.

But adults didn’t see it that way. During after-school activities, I dreaded the random assignments. My friends usually got football, I got arts and crafts.

I’ve never been into any of those stuff. I couldn’t draw if my life depended on it. So I’d sit quietly in a corner, waiting for it to end. One day, a counsellor finally asked why I wasn’t participating. I told them I wanted to play football instead. They looked genuinely puzzled and said, “You’re always so quiet, we just assumed you didn’t like sports.”

My seven-year-old brain froze, confused by this affirmation. Why should only loud children play sports? Why should I like art if I’m silent? 

I then blurted out the only thing that made sense: “Why would you assume that without asking me?”

I chose this trivial moment on purpose (going any darker and this post would’ve turned into a therapy session) because that moment stuck. It was the first time I realized how casually people assign labels, and how much damage that simple act can do.

Why we label, and how it traps us

That small moment at seven years old opened my eyes to something much bigger: how labels shape not just how others see us, but how we start to see ourselves.

Labels are an essential part of what makes us human: they help us figure out the dangerous world around us through a simplistic lens: those who are safe, and those who are threatening. In storytelling terms, the Western genre summed it up the best with the "White Hat/Black Hat" approach: a simple visual trick to help the audience figure out who is the hero and who is the villain.

These symbols are simple and direct. They leave no room for ambiguity in the narrative. And more importantly: they create a sense of community. If we agree on what is good and what is bad, we can survive collectively. Our survival instinct is stronger than any other.

But what if those beliefs trapped us into a false sense of safety? That’s where labeling stops being survival, and starts being limitation.

As social individuals, we crave external validation, even if the label turns out to be negative. If a child is being told from an early age by their parents or teachers that they are "stupid" because they wouldn’t understand a question — even with their best efforts — they will eventually give up on trying to improve and comfort themselves in their failure, because that’s what they’re expected to achieve.

And those labels don’t stop in childhood. Once in the workforce, individuals are forced into HR boxes like "autonomous," "creative," "refractory," "leader," "contrarian" for a lifetime of annual reviews. Those labels eventually impact how they are perceived by their superiors: the “leaders” will be given more responsibilities, while someone called an “underachiever” may be passed over for a promotion, even though their performance might not reflect their entire existence.

Just think of it for a moment: what’s the first thing we answer when someone asked what we do? Our job: accountant, electrician, teacher… even though they usually take just a third of your day. Nobody would dare to answer: "I’m a sleeper", and yet we spend more time asleep than in an office. Because our jobs define how we fit into society, how we bring something to the common good, even if those jobs are unfulfilling.

Unfortunately, those assignations tend to have lasting mental effects on individuals, leading to stress, anxiety, or social isolation. If everyone I know only sees me as a failure because of my work, why should I deserve to be happy outside of it?

The personal cost of being boxed in

Even though I work in communication, those skills were always a personal challenge to manage. Small talk literally makes me sweat even during a blizzard, visual social cues feel like a game of charades, and networking events make me feel like I’m being swallowed by a monster wave. For all of those, I’ve been labelled as "awkward," "isolating"… even "dark" (though, to be fair, the coffee machine wasn’t working that day).  

This led me to naturally step aside from work events and office life, retreating to my desk and just focusing on my work with a headset, because this was the image expected of me. But that discomfort turned out to be useful. It made me pay closer attention to people, their silences, their contradictions: all the things that never fit neatly into a label.

When the week would come to an end, I would sometimes join my friends and have colorful, loud arguments about politics, movies, sports… you name it. And yet, I would feel somehow detached. Still the same quiet and brooding person as at work and school. Because this is what’s been put upon me. Because this is how people know me. Breaking character would feel like a betrayal of their expectations. So I just kept quiet and focused on my drink.

Less labels, more listening

Maybe that’s what labels really do: they make us play characters in a story we didn’t write. The “quiet one,” the “funny one,” the “weirdo,” the “leader.” We learn our role so well we forget we ever had the freedom to improvise. The saddest part is that everyone else is doing the same, and we all keep pretending we understand each other’s roles.

The main reason, as for most of life, is fear. Labels offer shortcuts in a world that’s already complicated enough. They give us rules, predictability, and the illusion of understanding. But they also shrink us to the tiniest portion of ourselves: someone struggling with substance is an alcoholic, someone takes some personal time off their kids and they’re a "bad parent"… labels are not only harmful, but they prevent us from growing and improving on ourselves.

No one fits perfectly into a box, not even the people who built them. It’s like reducing a whole film to a single frame: the characters might be there, but the story is lost on you.

The hard part is learning to live without those definitions. To say, “I’m not the quiet one or the anxious one: I’m just me, multi-faceted, with all my complexities. And I change” — or like the protagonist of The Life of Chuck (2025)  keeps telling us: "I contain multitudes".

The realization is hard, but eventually liberating. Because once we stop holding on to labels, we start listening. To others, and to ourselves.

This is my main motivation with freelance writing: I want to tell authentic stories, without social biases branded on their forehead. Every single journey carries its own complexity and background. It’s what makes us humans — but more importantly, individuals.

Whether it’s a social issue, a business idea, or a personal essay, every story deserves to be treated as something singular and human.

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