Years ago, I went to a seminar where we had an interesting ice breaker. The object of the ice breaker was to introduce yourself without stating your occupation or job title. At first, everyone thought this was an easy task, but it proved to be quite difficult. Titles and job descriptions were very much a part of our identities. Although we wore many hats, it was almost impossible to identify ourselves without the association of our daily tasks and routines.

Men and women wear many hats throughout their lives. Descriptions such as quarterback, cheerleader, president, CEO, mentor, mother, brother, homeless, aunt, coach, professor, doctor, nerd, freeloader, drifter, coward, cheater, entrepreneur, fighter, pilot, and tradesmen are just a few ways to be identified. It’s almost impossible to think of ourselves without labels. I’m a mom, a wife, a teacher, a writer/creative, a grandmother, a daughter, only child, a public speaker, a volunteer, an advocate, etc. I am me. I am simultaneously all of these – “One for all, and all for one.” – wearing different hats in different spaces. It becomes more and more difficult to separate myself from any one of these identifiers, because all of them are simply me.

From my small platform this seems true for almost everyone. Very few people are singular in their identity. Yet, we seemed surprised to know that XYZ rapper (my favorite, 50 Cent – Curtis James Jackson) is a successful businessman outside the realm of hip hop. We stereotype large-bodied football players before we know they are owners of gourmet restaurants (Check out Elways, or Favre’s Steakhouse). Pink-haired students can’t escape our judgement until we learn she’s a high school honor roll graduate headed to the University of Montevallo in the fall (Google: Tamira Prince). We assume we understand the predicament of the person with holes in their pants and a shopping cart full of cardboard. We think we know the blight of the person talking to himself as we watch his orchestrated hand movements. Hats can be difficult to discern if we fail to ask questions or observe other facets of a person’s life.

Many of us have had to fight off labels given to us by other people who assumed they recognized the hats we were wearing. How many times have I been told only children are brats and spoiled even when my mom worked two jobs to make ends meet and made most of our clothes by cutting out newspaper patterns? How often did professionals call me antisocial because my face was always in a book, never mind the fact that I learned to read when I was three and chose to read the classics at age ten. My neighbors were drunks, pimps, prostitutes, preachers, blue collar workers, teachers, widows, and unwed mothers who all watched out for me and promised me that I would be somebody one day. Members of street gangs protected me because my grandmother, the praying lady, was always nice to them and ready to help them and their families any way she could. Little old ladies in our church and community gladly gave me coins and dollar bills to help me with the expenses of school and college. They all seemed to believe I would succeed. They all seemed to believe I could wear any hat available in the world. All of these characters in my beloved community said I had spunk, wisdom beyond my years, and a gift for gab, and I believed them. They called me a good girl that was going places. When I said, “I wanted to be a nurse” (until I saw blood up close and personal for the first time); they said, “You can do it!” When I said, “I wanted to be a teacher”: they said, “We see that in you!” When I said, ‘I wanted to write books and own my own business’; they said, “You can do anything you put your mind to.” As often as I traded the hats I wanted to wear, my extended community and family swore they could see them all. I try to do that for the children in my sphere of influence today.

How many hats do you wear? Are you wearing the negative hats or the positive hats? Have you acquired your own identity? Do you use your preferred titles or are you stuck with someone else’s labels? You have the right to change hats all along the way of your life because there is no one position or title that can cover all that you are. You are a human being, the highest species on planet earth. You are a member of society, good or bad as it may be. You are a citizen of the world, as well as the place where you were born. That makes you connected to people and places you may have never seen. You can choose to force identities on others, or you can choose to allow them to define themselves. Better still, you can spend your time defining yourself. Play the ice breaker game with yourself. Identify yourself, write it on a piece of paper. Don’t use job titles or job descriptions. Avoid family positions and rankings. Who were you when you woke up this morning? Who were you when you started writing? Who will you be at the end of the day? How many times did you change hats?

Of course, I don’t have a pat closing for this blog post (pun intended), so I guess I’ll go for the obvious sentimental scenario. Let’s all try to wear more hats of honor, integrity, and compassion. If we remember these hats, our professional hats and our community hats will display the best identities possible. Okay, I tried. Pick your own ending.

Wear your hats. Wear your authentic self. Live in peace.