ROLE PLAY

Labels, labels and more labels. If you are a regular, you have probably heard me say “flowers over labels” before. If you have not, well FLOWERS OVER LABELS! Labels are limits, labels are responsibilities and the base of today's blog, labels are roles.

I have talked about choosing labels on several occasions but one thing I seem to have left out is the kind of labels that choose you. You will probably agree with me that we are born into certain roles. For example; I am a daughter and that is a role I was born into. I can’t change it or drop it; I am a daughter. Most times the roles we are born into do not give us much work to do, I was born a daughter and nothing I do can change that right? Wrong, even the labels we are born into require work. Let me just highlight that every label comes with responsibilities, whether it is a chosen role or not.

The more labels one has the harder it is to play roles. Roles usually conflict and as people we are always falling short. For me, being a daughter is the hardest role to play because unlike the other roles I have, it is a mandatory role. Should I add names to this? cool? Okay. Person A is a son, a student and a counselor at church. A has trouble being a son because he has to study and if he is not studying, he has to talk to different people about different issues at church. since A is a son by default, he doesn’t pay much attention to his responsibility as a son and this tends to affect his mother and siblings. They feel like he does not care about them.

Person A like most of us places more value on the roles that can either be given or taken away from him. Whatever your attained roles are, I understand they are important and you want to keep them which is totally logical. Spoiler alert!! They are not permanent roles; you might not have that label tomorrow. Suppose person A graduates from school, that means he is not a student anymore, and something happens at church so he is not a counsellor anymore, unfortunately for A, he has a bad relationship with his mother and siblings so I am not sure what he is going to do with all that free time. Well he could always start working on his dominant permanent role, but he wouldn’t have to do that if he fulfilled his responsibilities as a son.

Am I saying focus on your permanent roles? Yes and no. yes because it is in the name, they are PERMANENT. And no because all your roles require layers of you. Labels are important but managing them is not an easy task. The perimeters of each label will often conflict with those of another. One thing that has personally helped is performing duties of my roles in order of importance and not favorites, my most important role is being a daughter and my favorite role is being a blogger. I will always do what is required of me as a daughter before I play my role as a blogger, this probably explains why I have not blogged in over a month.

Makes sense? I hope it does. Go ahead and write down your roles. Remember its important over favorite. Goodluck!