Labels work well on cans of food and bottles of wine, but they don't function nearly so well when you apply them to yourself and to other people.  Labels are full of half-truth, hype, and overgeneralization.  They are usually packed full of emotion that reflects the attitudes of the person who constructed the label, rather than revealing the character of the person being labeled.

Labels are weapons of character destruction.  It doesn't matter whether you apply a label to yourself or to others, the label will be wrong and will leave a trail of destruction in its wake.  It's impossible to create a label that adequately describes your own character or that of others.  Labels lie; they aren't the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.  That's the real problem with labels - they are designed to destroy rather than build up.  They obscure rather than shed light.  They dismiss people with a single word that slips effortlessly off the tongue.

Depressed people are experts at creating destructive labels that echo endlessly in the chambers of their mind.  Their dark imagination fills their mind with negative images, and their negative internal critic disparages the motives and accomplishments of themselves and others.

The negative focus found at the center of a negative operating system looks for the bad in everyone.  The negative operating system then applies labels consistent with their dark imaginations.  Most of the time their demeaning labels are wrong - in fact, they are mislabels.

When you stand in front of this mirror, and it starts applying labels to yourself and to others, you know that those labels are a distortion of reality.  There is no single label you can apply to any individual that accurately describes who that person is.  Everyone is bigger than any label.

If you insist on looking into this mirror, and labels keep popping into your mind, then you must make a pact with yourself.  For every negative label that you affix to yourself or anyone else, you must also apply at least two positive labels as well.  That will accomplish two positive things.  It will be fair to the other person and to yourself, because there is no single label that truly describes anyone.  It will also force you to look for the good in everyone you meet, including yourself.

When the mirror of labeling and mislabeling starts talking, it's time to stop listening and walk away.  And if the Negative Label Factory refuses to cease production, then start up your own Positive Label Factory and inundate yourself and everyone else with positive labels.  This is your chance to make the world a better place with a plethora of positive labels.  There is no limit to how good your life can become when you create positive labels and apply them to everyone in your world.

Excerpt from :

Zero Tolerance To Negative Thinking : Good-by Depression - Hello Positive Mind

David J Abbott M.D.