Reflection and Change

What is it that you see when you look in the mirror? Is it yourself, or is it just the projection of how you perceive yourself? When you see that reflection is it what you want, or do you merely see someone you just have to live with for now? Leonard Shelby in Memento said, "We need mirrors to remind ourselves of who we are," but do you even want to be reminded?

I've been asking myself that question for the last couple of days, well, you know, it's probably been a lot longer than that. When I look in the mirror I see messy hair, baggy eyes, cheeks plagued with acne, patchy stubble, and a head that doesn't quite fit my slim frame. The person I see reflects how I feel most days. Tired. Worn down. My reflection is the personification of my insecurities, my fears, and all of my over thought anxieties. I see in those tired eyes that I dwell too much, I get caught up in my insecurities, I forget to look at the positives around me and it bogs me down before too long. In my own words, "I have all of these things to make me happy this week, but if I'm not happy now what does it even matter?" I'm just barely scratching the surface here too, my anxieties and lack of self-image stretch far further than I'm willing to get into.

That isn't to say I'm always like this, that's the farthest from the truth you could get. I lock myself into these vicious cycles of prolonged happiness followed by the depths of my self-imposed worry. It usually starts with me mincing my words leading to some form of misunderstanding or another. Then I just get to work at beating myself up. I'm in complete agreement with the people who say that I'm too hard on myself. I am. In fact, I probably beat myself up at every chance I get.

Get a B: I'm an idiot, how could I have possibly gotten into this university
Trip and fall: I'm an idiot and I'm clumsy
Miss a note while playing guitar: I suck and I should just quit
I misspeak: I just need to stop talking and making myself to be the fool.
I make a bad joke: Shut up, just shut up. I'm an idiot.

Now wait just a moment, before you think that this is just some quasi-depressed ranting about how much I dislike myself that isn't quite the case. The ray of light here is that I'm discontented with this cycle. In my eyes, discontentment and unhappiness are the mechanism for making change. I look in that reflection, with all of its low self-image and tiredness, and I want to force something to change.

But how? How can you take something so ingrained into your subconscious and change it for the better? To me, it's simply making a change in mindset, a shift in pace. Find something new and embrace it, learn something new about myself to take pride in. Maybe, then, it's not something you have to force necessarily, but rather just making a push to make the change happen.

It isn't easy, but what is? All it takes is work, patience, and the will to actually make the change. Do I have the will? I think so. Everything will fall into place from here. I don't know how long it will take, but the benefit will outweigh the time spent by far. I feel like writing this all down is the first step. I'm certainly nervous that people will read this and get the wrong idea, thinking that I'm just complaining about all my faults without doing nothing to remedy a thing.

But you know what? That hardly matters. What matters to me is that my haggard, tired reflection will "wake up" in a certain sense. The quote "This too shall pass" has never rang out more true. It's only a matter of time. For now, I'm going to nap in the grass and wonder where to begin anew.

If only I could take credit for this picture

Until next time...

Image courtesy of Google images; no copyright intended