Outward Appearances

You can learn a lot about a person by looking at the stickers they have on the back of their laptop. I have two stickers for my university, one for a brand of outdoor gear, two that I bought in the Great Smoky Mountains on my senior trip at the end of high school, and one with the Bible verse 1 Corinthians 16:14. By examining these pieces of myself that I have chosen to display to the outside world, you can learn that I attend a certain university, that I enjoy hiking and have visited the Great Smoky Mountains, that I spend time outdoors, and that I read the Bible. I did not choose these stickers for a specific purpose; they were just ones I had accumulated over the years and that had sat collecting dust under my bed until that fateful day when I decided to put them to good use. And yet they have come to mean something to me.  

I have a friend who has a soccer sticker, a physiology sticker, and a sticker with gummy bears on it. Because I know my friend, I know that she truly does love all three of those things, but sometimes I am unsure about other people. If someone has a sticker that says, “I love Jesus,” how do we know that is true? Can a person really know I love hiking just because I have a sticker that says I do? Does the person with a sticker shaped like a duck on their water bottle have an unusual fondness for that animal? 

Some people might pick a particular sticker, so it could seem like they are interested in a certain topic or that they support a particular idea, but that doesn’t mean they really do. How can we know whether this persona they are presenting is genuine or only a facade? How much can we truly know each other, or even truly know ourselves? I used to wear shirts for certain sports teams just because everyone else I knew wore gear for their favorite teams. In reality, I could care less about who won the Super Bowl. I tried to convince myself that dressing the same way others did would make me more likable, more approachable. I knew wearing the shirts wouldn’t make me any more of a Denver Broncos or Notre Dame fan, but I felt that if I looked like the kind of person who was interested in sports, it would make me fit in. But are outside appearances always (or ever) reliable? The person who is always smiling may not really be happy. The one who complains may not be upset. What if the ones who look confident, who greet every day with gusto, are secretly as scared as the rest of us? How many people are hiding behind a facade, trying to convince the whole world, including themselves, that they are someone they are not?  

When I put a sticker on my laptop, I do so with care and purpose. If I am going to advertise the Great Smoky Mountains to everyone I see, I’d better be able to tell them something about it if they ask. Stickers are public, and I want to know what messages I am sending. When I placed the sticker that read, “Let all that you do be done in love,” I am saying, “This is who I want to be. Someone who is characterized by her love for others.” And that’s a risky thing to say, because people will hold you accountable to that. Am I who the stickers on my laptop say I am? Am I trying as hard as I should to measure up to those expectations? You can learn a lot about a person by looking at the stickers they have on their laptop, by the way they dress, by the things they say. Or maybe you can’t.