Mirror mirror...

Yesterday a friend and I were walking in town, shopping for a special outfit for her.  She was hosting a dinner party at her house for her husband and his colleagues.  After two hours and two dozen different outfits, she still was no closer to finding anything to wear.  Exhausted, we decided to stop for a quick lunch.  

All through lunch she bewailed the abilities of the designers of female attire, she lamented her body type, "old age" and the useless diet she was on, etc, etc.  I patiently listened to her and then reminded her of the number of outfits she had tried on that flattered her shape, that matched her colouring perfectly, that complimented her beautiful blue eyes and suited her style.  However, she would have nothing of it.  She could only see everything that was wrong with the clothing, with her hair and her height, to name but a few.  There were still a number of boutiques awaiting our visit after lunch, but I knew for certain that in her present state of mind, those would also not have anything suitable for her to wear.  

When our order arrived, she complained that the lettuce was wilted, the bread was stale and the coffee cold.  I just smiled and ate my delicious fresh sandwich and drank the steaming cappuccino in front of me.  

As we got up to leave, a woman, who was with my friend at school, entered the restaurant, and, instantly recognizing her, made her way over to us.  We sat down together with her and spend another hour laughing and sharing stories.  As she got up to leave, she turned to my friend and said, "After all these years you are still as beautiful as you were at school, you were the envy of all us girls."  My friend blushed, and I could see that she was happy for the compliment.  

Suddenly it was as if she perked up, and was actually looking forward to continue our quest.  I noticed her stealing a glance at her reflection in the window and I thought about how true it is that life is all about our vision.  The way in which we look at things around us, the way in which we perceive the world and how we look at ourselves determines how we will react towards it.  

Where is our focus, what do we see when we look at something?  If we look with negative eyes, eyes clouded with unhappiness and dissatisfaction then that is exactly what we will find.  Looking at everything with a positive attitude has a direct effect on our happiness levels.  It can turn the ordinary into the extraordinary and something mundane into truly fabulous.  Our vision affects our attitude and with the right attitude obstacles become stepping stones and the impossible becomes an exciting challenge.  Our vision can change the whole direction our lives are going in, it can even open our eyes to new avenues to explore and reveal new opportunities to us.  

Go on, take that mirror.  Look carefully in it, and ask yourself - what do you see?  Look beyond that face staring at you, see beyond your own preconceived ideas about yourself, see that dream that you have been hiding, see all those possibilities that you have denied yourself.  Look.  Look and see that girl/ young man that were created so very unique and special, one of a kind...you still are that!

Life has a way of telling us a bunch of lies and we are so ready to believe those lies and when we believe them then that is all we can see.  We lose sight of who we really are and who we were created to be.  The looking glass gets cluttered by negativity, crushed dreams and the world’s demands and expectations.  It’s time to clean that mirror, and look at it once again with the enthrallment of a little child.