Can you imagine being Chesney Hawkes?

It’s human nature. Most of all we love to label other people.

He’s a bigot, she’s an alcoholic, you’re a liar.

On and on.

In glibly bandying labels we run the risk of stereotyping the other person.

And when those labels are based on ignorance and prejudice… well, we know where that leads.

While it’s one thing to want to define somebody, it’s quite another to be the one being pushed, prodded and stuffed into a small, cramped, stuffy pigeon-hole.

We want to be free, to follow our passions without constraint.

I can label you, but don’t you dare diminish me with your inadequate names.

How often do famous actors, singers or writers protest how much they hate the work they’re most famous for? They’ve become sick to death of it.

The one-hit wonder singing the same song night after night for 40 years.

Can you imagine being Chesney Hawkes?

You want to perform new material, but the public constantly wants you to sing The One and Only.

And to add insult to injury the royalty cheque goes to Nik Kershaw, who wrote the song.

Famously, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle got so fed up of Sherlock Holmes he killed him off in a dramatic struggle with arch-enemy Professor Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls. Holmes had become a millstone around his author’s neck (never mind the pots of money he earned Conan Doyle). In the end, the author brought back the Great Detective because of demand from the public.

I can sympathise with this mentality to a point. Although it would be nice to have a success on a worldwide scale to match that of Sherlock Holmes.

Perhaps the worst labels are the ones that describe not what we are now but what we once were. Constantly at our back like an unwanted smell or a crime we’ve done time for but from which society will never release us.

It’s like saying, once you were great, once you were glorious. But now… well, you’re not.

Was George Best haunted by forever being reminded of his glory days as a footballer?

Some people spend their entire lives trying to avoid their labels.

It must be terrible having a talent but being overshadowed by your famous parent who had the advantage of being born before you.

Think of the musician children of The Beatles. No matter how good a songwriter you might be, you will forever be John Lennon’s or Paul McCartney’s or George Harrison’s or Ringo Starr’s child.

I understand the need to pigeon-hole and sometimes it’s necessary (guilty as charged; journalists do it all the time).

But never forget. We are all so much more than the sum of our parts.