I am taking a public speaking class this semester. The first assignment was to introduce ourselves in an online forum, using only three words.

At first I thought it would be easy, but then, as I began to think, I realized that it would be harder than I thought. To reduce myself to three words? But I am so much more than that… right?

World class eater. Writer, reader, runner. Student, teacher, viewer. Daughter, sister, friend. Dreamer, realist, optimistic-cynic. Baker, musician, pirate. Nerd, geek, basic. Coffee, travel, food. Christian, doubter, confused. Hopeful, doubtful, apathetic.

And so much more than even that! How can I reduce myself to just three words? How can anyone?

I follow a Facebook page called Humans of New York. The other week I saw the story of a man who was the subject of a documentary called 'No Impact Man'. He and his family were trying to be as environmentally conscious as possible. The documentary got a lot of attention and he and his family were both praised and persecuted. Some called him a hero, others called him a devil. What struck me about his story was when he said, “I couldn't be contained by a single word.”

We as humans are so complex. We are so much more than what meets the eye. And yet, we always define other people by few words that reduce them to… well, to almost nothing. These one-word descriptors cannot begin to contain us.

Now I don’t mean to say that we as a collective human race have to immediately stop this habit and start describing people completely accurately. That’s actually a ridiculous idea, because there’s nothing inherently wrong with just using a few words to talk about someone (or yourself). But perhaps we should try to be a little more careful about the way we think of others, remembering that words cannot begin to actually show who these people are.

The words I chose to describe myself are simple ones. It was hard because I want people to know that not only am I this, but I’m also that and that and that (see above list for context). I am a lot of things. However, I have reduced myself to three words for the sake of an introduction and I believe they suit me: writer, reader, believer.