unorganized rant.

I've been taking online classes for the past 3 and a half weeks and I have had to go to my campus' library to research. The campus is totally empty, with everyone being gone for the summer. Directly after work I end up at the library, alone and being alone a good portion of the day for days at a time has really caused me to be still, think, pray and search my own heart. The "reality checks" I have been experiencing don't seem to stop since I've been here. Up until a couple of days ago, I was walking an empty campus in the dark... utterly alone with my thoughts and prayers. There have been several times where spiritual slaps in the face have left me in tears. Tears of joy, tears of regret, tears of guilt and tears of forgiveness. He knows what it takes to get my attention...He has it. Something that has been heavy on my heart has been differentiating who I am vs. what I am as well as others.

When does someone with cancer suddenly become a cancer patient? Or how does someone who eats too much suddenly seem fat? Where does our society decide that an individual's actions or traits define who they are or what they want to be? In this world, how can one look at another and decide "what" they are, rather than who they are?

No one wants to look in the mirror and see an object looking back. I would never wake up one morning and go to my bathroom to see a "failure", "student", or "ex-girlfriend" looking at me through the mirror. Since i know myself well enough, i know that there is more than that to me and that these nouns are only part of a pool of words that can be used to describe maybe a small aspect of me. (i am forgiven, i am HIS, i am blessed..) I'm sure anyone else could agree - they don't look at themselves as a collection of words, but a person.

When i look at other people, why do i still see "students", "superiors" or "crowds" looking back. No one is an individual, and its my goal to function beyond this. Why is it one person's right to decide who another person is, or should be? 

So, to overcome this, i sometimes try to make up stories about the people i see. Maybe that girl eating too much is really a recovering anorexic, and this is her taking power over herself. Maybe that person with cancer has decided not to let their disease control them, but rather move forward in life. I'll look at a distressed man in a suit walking across the street, and instead of deeming him a high-powered "jerk," he might just be a student on break from a part time job, in a hurry to catch the bus or meet his girlfriend for lunch.

By giving depth to people, whether its true or not, the urges to want to decide who someone is without their consent becomes more difficult. I can look at them as if they were human beings, too - even if it means lying to myself. I don't want to keep skimming through a crowd and deciding "who is what" without knowing who they are. I'd rather just believe that everyone is fighting their own battles and working towards their own goals - individually, separately, and with strength. 

I don't ever want to be just a face to someone else, so why am I? ...how else can you overcome the mindset of a people without starting with your own adjustments? 

have you ever been deemed as something you wouldn't consider yourself to be? Do you do this to people without realizing it? Why do you think we, as a culture, do this? And for the record... don't just call it human nature...thats just the excuse to continue our actions and call it an instinct.