Don’t try to fit me in a box… My life is not one dimensional. I’m the summer breeze and the hurricane… I’m the serene lake and the raging ocean… I’m the gentle poet and the rough warrior… I can build and I can destroy.. I can romance and I can ravage.. I can be wise and I can be silly.. I can and WILL be everything that the length, depth, and breadth of life will allow.. KNOW THIS! Your labels don’t limit me… they limit your experience of me. Don’t confuse the two. .Steve Maraboli
About This Quote
This is a quote by the famous writer and poet Rainer Maria Rilke. He was writing to someone who was trying to make him fit into a particular category and who was unknowingly limiting him and his experiences of the world. For example, if you were trying to make him fit into a box as a young man, you might label him as rebellious or wild. But, when you grew older, you might label him as wise or silly.
The problem with this is that your experience of him changes based on what box you put him in. If you are putting him in the box of being wise, he becomes too wise for his own good. So, instead of being wise, he becomes silly.
If you are making him fit into the box of being wild, he becomes too wild for his own good. So again, instead of being wild, he becomes wacky. The point is that your experience of this person will never be perfect if it is based on a particular label that does not fully know who he is.