Learn to live life without caring about the labels

Quite a while back, someone asked me what I thought about "toxic masculinity."

Honestly, I don’t have much to say about the term itself, but I do have a lot of thoughts about how new words and labels keep popping up, seemingly to create more fear and control.

Every time I look around, it feels like whenever a new label appears to explain a certain behavior, it is less about helping us understand each other and more about slotting people into neat little boxes. Is there really any benefit in endlessly categorizing ourselves?

Take "toxic masculinity," for instance. Sure, I get that it refers to certain harmful cultural norms tied to traditional masculinity, such as aggression, violence, emotional repression, and all that.

But sometimes, it can feel like the term is thrown around so loosely that any expression of masculinity might end up being labeled as "toxic." It is as if we are moving toward a point where being a man itself is seen as problematic.

I can’t help but wonder if this endless labeling ends up just being another way to scare us into behaving a certain way or to shame us for having a personality that doesn’t fit into some ideal image. It makes me think that we are losing the ability to let people just be themselves without overanalyzing every little aspect of their character.

And it is not just about men. There is also this term "剩女," or "leftover women" in Chinese, which is used to describe women in their late 20s or older who are still single. It is pretty disturbing when you think about it. It creates the idea that a woman's value somehow decreases over time if she isn’t married.

Who came up with these standards anyway? It is like saying there is an expiration date on a person’s value. That term doesn’t just put pressure on women to conform to some outdated standard, but it is also a way to make people feel insecure about their lives.

As if being single means they are missing out on something essential, like their happiness is tied to a relationship status. But who is to say that being single equals being unhappy or that being in a relationship is the ultimate goal for everyone?

Men aren’t free from judgement, either. If you stay single too long, people start questioning whether you are “living up to your potential.”

It feels like life is just a constant race to meet society’s expectations. If you are not checking all the right boxes, such as relationship, career, social status, then you are somehow “falling behind.”

But what if someone is okay with not fitting in? What if they are comfortable living life on their own terms? Is that such a bad thing?

I always like to think one level deeper and I wonder if there is a bigger picture here. Maybe these labels are meant to keep us in check, to make us feel like we are constantly doing something wrong unless we subscribe to the “correct” lifestyle.

It is almost like society profits off our insecurities. If you think about it, it is scarily true, when we have a certain fear, we want to do something about that fear, and we are willing to spend money to get rid of that fear, to make ourselves feel “good” again. If we feel like we’re falling behind, there is always a product: a seminar, a book, or an app that promises to “fix” us.

These terms are not just simple words, they are clever tools to make sure we are always striving to be something other than what we are. To be “better” for what can be the wrong reasons.

But you know what? There is a quiet power in not buying into the fear. In being okay with the fact that we might not fit neatly into any category.

Maybe that is what freedom really looks like. It is not the absence of labels, but the refusal to let the labels define us.

I guess I am still figuring out where I stand on all of this, but it is quite clear that the more I think about these terms, the more I realize I don’t want them to shape how I see myself or others.

Maybe it is not about rejecting labels entirely, but about refusing to let them dictate who we are. If anything, I want to stay curious about life, about people, and about myself, and not be boxed in by words that were never meant to capture the whole story.

Human beings are not manuals to be studied, as if we are meant to be understood once and then set in stone.

People do change. We grow, we fall, and we learn. Every experience adds a new layer, every setback shifts our perspective, and with each day, we become a different version of ourselves.

I think that is what makes life so unpredictable and beautiful, and what makes people so interesting to learn about. It is ultimately about learning to understand one another, with each new change that comes with each new day.

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