Dirt in your skirt blog

Musing: Why Are We So Hung up on Titles

Posted on August 3, 2015 by Margaret Schlachter

Last week I wrote about the path of rewilding through obstacle racing. The sport of OCR has transformed lives and honestly transformed the sporting landscape drastically over the past couple of years. Many still may not know what this whole industry is, but more and more commercials, media, and corporations are picking up the on growing movement and it is no longer in the shadows.

It is interesting that right as these moments of reflection were on my mind the flip side of the coin played out rather loudly on social media over the weekend. The appearance of the bloated ego. The argument raged over the weekend about labels and about needing to label this group or that group, and arguing over who can use what label. Over the weekend, through my many roles had the first look at the article written by Brakken Kraker currently trending the OCR community. It was the first thing I read Sunday morning and found myself saying yes, yes and more yes. Watching it make the rounds this morning online I am not the only one.

While journeying down the current rabbit hole I seemed to have plunge head first into, it has had me thinking a lot about labels, self identity and more. I first had these thoughts back in 2011 when I spent many many hours in the woods alone in Vermont. During those runs and hikes 99% of the time the only thing to carry me along the trail and woods were my thoughts, and well my ipod it was there as well. Prolonged periods of exercise seem to awaken deep dark reaches of our mind. More than once I found myself in tears, processing a memory or a moment, working though some unknown block in my mind.

That work has continued to this day. When I woke up this morning and set off editing articles for the week for MRG I shared the Brakken article with a friend in a message. She was the one who informed me that this argument had continued on all weekend after the initial spark on Friday. This argument as with many that we see on social media at the end of the day are fairly meaningless. How is a title really effecting your day to day life. Some may argue greatly, but if we look within, a title or a word doesn’t really define us. Most of the time those titles are the things that tear us apart.

Instead of clinging to an identity based on a word or a title, I challenge those around me and also myself to disconnect from the titles and instead define ourselves by our actions, let others bestow titles if they please but still those are meaningless at the end of the day. Instead foster a world around you based on what you do, it is then we all start to grow.