The Lineup

Written by: Khadeja

I struggle to remain neutral. TRULY neutral and not just during an argument between two people that I care about. I have recently found myself questioning my opinions; not in terms of their nature but I have been questioning the reason for their existence. Before my ‘aha’ moment, I noticed that my brain would automatically try to put certain thoughts into boxes. Regardless of whether or not these thoughts actually NEEDED to be categorized. Every time I came across something; a person, their behavior, their life choices – both in my reality and on-line –. My mind would place the image that was created to depict it onto a conveyor belt…his image would be carried down passing by different colored boxes labelled Good, Bad, I like, I hate, that’s right, that’s wrong, etc. until it got to its destination; whichever box reflected my assessment of the situation at hand.

But I struggle to understand why. Why do I feel compelled to have an opinion or point of view on absolutely everything under the sun? Does it really matter what I think? Is it doing anyone good or is it just taking up precious grey matter?

People are different with different tastes and preferences. And most of the time we are SURE that personally we’re on the right track and ‘my way is best’. But why? Is it because we are trying to make some sense out of the madness that is life? Is it the fact that we are trying to overcompensate for our lack of control? Sure, there are many things that we can control in our lives – to a certain extent – however we are at the end of the day living on a rock that is being suspended in space; so how much do we ACTUALLY control?

Perhaps our categorizing – a.k.a judgements but that word just sounds so ugly – brings us a sense of comfort; a reassurance that we must be doing ok if we are doing x-y-z and everyone else uses different letters (because we KNOW that x-y-z is far more superior and is the right way after all). A lot of the times we are unsure of what we are doing, but that uncertainty is buried deep inside of us. Under so many layers of ego that we don’t think we are insecure when we truly are. And it makes us feel better when we categories other people’s behaviors because we are essentially telling ourselves that we are doing better.

I would like to propose a challenge. To myself firstly but also to you, dear reader. What if for one week we limited our categorizing to JUST things and not people? How do you think we would all do?