Boxes are for storing things that we don’t want to look at.
Boxes are for pushing things aside, things we’d rather deal with later.
Boxes are where we put things we don’t know what to do with, so the box makes it easier to ignore the thing.
People are not things. They don’t belong in boxes. We should not label people and push them aside saying, I don’t want to look at them. I‘ll deal with them later. Or, I don’t know how to deal with them, so I won’t.
Why? Because most often we get it wrong. That is, we get the label we place on the box wrong. And the person we’ve just labeled will never–because of our loveless estimation–grow beyond that label.
Most often, we put people in a box and don’t let them out for years because it’s easier for us to live our lives that way because after all we are busy.
The tendency to put people in a box is out of our need to categorize people. It’s a lazy habit we develop to protect our own world. Trying to manage our expectations of a person keeps our own life comfortably safe. When we label someone we don’t have to go beyond ourselves to invest in them because the label says, No investment needed, that person is this… (label), forever. The box or the label removes our responsibility to love people.
If we truly love people we will not put them in boxes.
Love goes beyond itself, believes the best in people, gladly looks to discover the gold in people.
Love never limits a person to a box or a label but looks to lift up and encourage all people.
Love helps put momentum to people’s dreams and fires up their passion.
Love doesn’t push any person aside.
Love gives a second, a third, a fourth…. a 5,000th chance.
Love sees the potential and value in all people.
Love risks all to help people.
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