The Man in the Mirror - The Only Image That Matters

 Self-image, public image, professional image... so many images we portray in our lifetime; Yet the only image that matters all the time is the one reflected back from the mirror we face each day. It is you; the real, unadorned, untamed and unpolished you. It is the face of the reality we have created from the time we began making choices in our lives. And there it is, staring back at us with bloodless eyes of shame or unbridled excitement, depending on the choices we have made.

It is a tough taskmaster, this man in the mirror. We can't run or hide or spin a good line about how things went south or even deliver a loser's limp about why we almost made it. It knows the truth and accepts that it was our own choices, regardless of how bad they were, that painted the lines of fatigue and defeat on our faces, that filled our eyes with the bloodshot residue of our last attempt to drown out the sorrow of facing yet another tomorrow like the day that has just ended. Tomorrow is just a day when we will make the same choices for the same reasons and lament about how things never change, because we have never changed. We get up each day and continue walking a path that has long since lost the meaning it held when we began walking it. Still, we want to believe things will change, or that surely something worthwhile will come if we keep walking it and trying.

We are perched on the edge of insanity when we expect things to change while we continue to do the same thing every day that brought us to the point of despair. It is this that we face when we stare into the mirror each morning, the questioning gaze that has sprung from our soul and is seared into our consciousness. Most people avert their eyes and continue with whatever the task at hand is. It is incredible how many people wake up each day, walk to the mirror in their bathroom and never stare into their own image; it is too painful. It seals the deal on where we have been, our eyes staring back with the story of where we expect to go. And so we look away.

If we are willing to stop and look squarely into the eyes of the image staring back at us, the man in the mirror reflects the best that we can be. It waits patiently for us to accept that there are better choices that will be supported by the universe, that our hopes and dreams should not be vanquished because we gave up on them. It is this image that stares at us hoping we will finally connect with the image that is the reality of us and see through eyes of hope rather than despair. That we will finally believe tomorrow does not have to be another day like yesterday, because today we can begin to fan the flames of hope that we long ago buried for reasons we cannot remember. The dying embers are fanned into the flames of excitement by our willingness to look closely at the image and accept the wisdom that is projected back at us. Does it ask you to change? Dare to try; it will mean making a different choice and believing it will work. It is asking you to trust the one surefire thing you can believe in; yourself.