Looking into the mirror day after day, I am reminded that how I see myself is entirely my choice. Granted, that is something that is hard to remind myself of when I don’t own a mirror. I must have gotten drunk again and thought it would be funny for sober me to pick up the pieces of broken glass. The moral of the story being, a drunk person with a brick and way too much time on their hands don’t mix when they see a shiny target.
Something about not having a mirror around makes it that much more interesting when you are finally able to see yourself in the bathroom at work. It is almost entertaining to see how badly my hair looks or how crooked my tie is.
I don’t know if it is the lack of self reflections I see now that my shiny piece of reflective glass is gone, but I have noticed I haven’t compared myself to others as much. Maybe this is the philosophical side of me coming out, but I feel as if our proclivity to compare things has led us down a path of misery. I mean, think about it: you start off the day with a baseline image of yourself, then from there it’s a downhill spiral as you see all the things you wish you had on other people. This is why I deleted all my social media, too many people with things I wish I had — or was it because they admitted to selling my information? Either way…
I am caring less and less about what I look like to others and more so about how I look to myself. They say that we are our own worst critic, but I guess the lack of a mirror killed my critic. No, I am still outwardly against bad pizza. Maybe I was just never that critical of myself to begin with. On the other hand, there are still times I am rather jealous of the unattainable standards set by celebrities.
I don’t get it; how can it be this hard to explain our comparative nature, unless it is ingrained within us? It could be a survival mechanism, like how we compare with others to adapt towards the best methods of living life. Honestly, I have no clue how I come up with these ideas half of the time.
Man, I really have to go buy another mirror.
Evan Brooks is a third-year Business Management major with minors in Economics & Civic and Professional Leadership. EB916132@wcupa.edu