Please Don’t Squeeze Potential; No Typecasting

August 7, 2015 ♦

AllOfMeMTT

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“Please don’t squeeze the Charmin,” Mr. Whipple scolded grocery customers on many television commercials. He did such a good job he became the definition of the word typecast.

In this new global economy with new ways of working and doing things, another part of being Smart for Now is to encourage everyone to resist typecasting each other. We’ve learned to typecast from job ads and employment requisitions, but the world has changed since then. Let’s stop setting everyone up for disaster and embrace a more resilient way.

Humans can be and learn more than one thing. If you want to be, or learn, you can.

We tell children they can be anything they want to be, and as adults we stop believing it. I’m not saying to get your green tights on and get all Peter Pan-ny. I’m not saying to be all dreamy and not reality based.

Having more than one interest that can generate income is MORE than valid.

The messaging changes and we start the typecasting by creating anxiety for kids to choose a major in college and then that major defines the person. We are expected to know from birth what we want to be. Undecided majors are judged as a bad unfocused people and school/career counseling maybe recommended. We become fixated at getting a job only in that major, and then welcome to today’s world. When we can’t get that job, or lose that job, then it becomes dangerous. Losing our self, or our typecast mis-identification of our self, can lead to depression. Preventing depression and the unhealthy mindset and behaviors that depression can lead to, in this case, can be avoided.

“You labeled me. I’ll label you.” Metallica

We tend to file each other with a label and just like actors and artists, we can get stuck in one role. Worse yet, we can contribute to labeling others. This video of Orange is the New Black’s Uzo Aduba illustrates what we might be missing by assuming only ONE talent (skill, passion or interest) about ONE human. Watch her on #OITNB and you will appreciate her and the range of her talent: