The reusable container can spend years identified by food it held only once.

A first use can name something forever. The container held one thing once, took its label, and has been that box in the household’s language ever since, regardless of the dozens of contents that followed. Early impressions attach to objects with unreasonable strength.

The same happens to people. The story of what someone did in their first month, or in one bad meeting, can become their permanent label inside a group. It is worth asking, about someone you have a fixed view of, when you formed it and what evidence has arrived since. And worth accepting that others carry an outdated label for you.