Environmental
A Green Home
By Jon DeBoard
In Junior High my mother liked to save money by buying the cheapest gym shoes she could find. Even worse, they were the ugliest. As an image conscious teen, I didn’t want to be caught dead in them, but I also couldn’t afford to buy what I really wanted. What then became my strategy? To wear them out as quickly as possible so I could tell my mom that cheap is not good. The truth I wanted to instill in her was that “Designer labels mean better quality.” If only that was the case.

A similar myth is, “You get what you pay for.” I’ve learned the hard way that we are charged as much as we are willing to pay for something, and the amount we hand over is not necessarily a reflection of quality. Is that $4.14 gallon of gas any better than the $3.04 gallon of gas you purchased just a year ago or $1.74 a few years before?  I’ve yet to hear someone tell me they were going into to the city to fill up because “better gas always costs more.”

Still, we are a very label conscious society. To be an alumni of an Ivy League school is much more prestigious than that of a small private college, yet the education may be comparable. We look at which side of the tracks people are from, their gender, skin color, national origin, their zip code, or their bank account balance to determine their worth. These are all designer labels. None of these labels ultimately determine quality.

There are other designer labels that have a bigger determination in a person’s future, and these labels are even more powerful. Unfortunately, they are also overused. Some of these labels are single words such as “fat,” “stupid,” “ugly,” “brat,” “dumb,” “incapable,” “worthless,” and “hopeless.” Stringing together a series of words into the label won’t make it any better either. How many of you were told, “You’ll never amount to anything!”? Eventually, it becomes easier to wear the label, “I wish I had never been born.”

Sometimes our designer labels are earned. The young child who saves the life of another becomes labeled a “hero” and proudly wears it the rest of her life. Meanwhile, another young girl reacts to the stress at home and struggles in school. She then wears another label. This designer label simply says, “Failure” and it never releases its grip upon her.

We even find solace in some designer labels we wear. When we speak to others about what we could have been, we bring up the “if onlys” of our life. “If only my parents had let me go to school.” “If only I had waited to marry.” “If only I didn’t get pregnant when I was 14.”

How can any of us reach the fullness of our desires in life if we let our past and its labels determine our future? How can we live free in this nation known as the “Land of the free” if the designer labels worn on our minds and hearts reduce us to a slavery of thought and purpose? Labels paralyze us. Labels rob a life of vitality and promise. Labels keep us focused on the agony of the past, and keep us speaking of “what might’ve been.” When we fail to forgive and continue pointing the finger of blame, not allowing ourselves or others to grow or change – we are applying labels.

Yes, many of us have had terrible and inhumane things happen to us! However, it isn’t what happened to us or what we’ve done that ultimately determines our future. The most important moment in your life is happening RIGHT NOW! It is this “now” of your existence that will determine your tomorrows. The past cannot be changed and the future is yet unwritten.  It is this moment in time, the NOW, that you can choose to either continue wearing the labels from the past that negatively design your future, or choose to discard those old labels, choosing new ones that will create for you the future you always yearned to experience.

It’s never too late for you to begin this transformation to fabulous! Oh, you say you’re too old or too lazy or too stuck? Maybe you think it’s too late or you were too bad? Discard those labels and go for the true you! Fabulous is a journey leading from one moment to the next with a destination worth achieving.

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