Identity is Fluid

We often mistake a temporary state of being for who someone is.

We like to make quick work of categorizing ourselves and everyone around us. We walk through life with labels ready to fire off, hoping they’ll explain us to others. There are the obvious ones—religion, politics, nationality. Then there are the personality labels: introvert or extrovert, empath, Gemini, Type A, highly sensitive, and on and on.

Some of these tell us something meaningful. They can offer insight into a person’s values, culture, or tendencies. But too often we leave no room for change. We forget to account for circumstance, environment, and company.

Someone may be quiet and withdrawn in one setting, then animated and endlessly talkative in another. One group of people might bring out caution; another might bring out confidence. The same person can seem entirely different depending on who they’re with, what they’ve experienced that day, or what season of life they’re in. Human beings are often far more flexible than our labels allow.

What does this have to do with horses?

Everything.

We buy a yearling or raise a foal, and before long we’ve decided exactly who that horse is. He’s lazy. She’s spooky. He’s dominant. She’s sensitive. We collect our observations, assign our labels, and stop looking.

But the horse standing in front of us today isn’t the horse that existed six months ago, or even yesterday.

If we believe we already know him, we stop listening.

Instead of responding to what’s actually happening, we’re responding to our story about him. We see everything through the lens of what we think we know.

The danger of living inside labels is that reality can be standing right in front of us and we’ll reject it because it doesn’t fit the category we’ve created.

It’s easy to learn a handful of systems and memorize the boxes. It’s comforting to believe every behavior has a predetermined explanation and every problem has a prescribed solution. Labels create the illusion of certainty. They make us feel as though we have control.

It’s much harder to meet the world with fresh eyes.

To approach each horse, each person, and even ourselves with the question: Who are you today?

That requires tolerating uncertainty. It requires admitting, “I don’t know yet.”

That uncomfortable space is where feel begins.

Feel isn’t built by collecting more labels. It’s built through observation, experimentation, curiosity, and the humility to let go of what you thought you knew when reality tells you otherwise.

The people who become exceptional communicators—whether with horses or with humans—aren’t the ones with the most categories. They’re the ones most willing to remain present, to notice what has changed, and to adapt.

Our world grows less tolerant every year of not knowing. We’re expected to have immediate opinions, immediate diagnoses, immediate answers.

But wisdom often begins with resisting that impulse.

Sometimes the most truthful thing we can say is, “I’m not sure. Let me look again.”