Life Is A Mirror

There are so many moments in this life, if not all, that feel like a mirror being held up to me. The universe saying, this thing you find so annoying about someone else, you actually do it quite often. Time after time, I have said I’d never act, react, talk a certain way. Only for the universe to put that exact situation on my path and guess what? I do exactly what I said I’d never. Isn’t it funny how that works? When these thing happen I have two options. Getting all salty and defensive on my pedestal, blaming whichever external circumstances come to mind. Or I can recognize in that moment the truth of my judgmental ways and steer my thoughts internally. Why did I assume I’d act any differently? I’ve been hurt so many times by the way someone treated me, just for me to treat someone the exact same way, out of no ill-will. I’d assumed my friend wasn’t thoughtful because she didn’t answer or unreliable when she canceled. But when I had things going on, oh, of course that's me just living in the present moment. Wake up Desiree, everyone has their own shit going on.

Here is a realization I’ve recently had. When I first moved to Boston with no friends and no plans, I had all the time in the world to hope that girl I hit it off with last weekend would text me and want to be my instant companion, or that my coworkers would ask to hangout after work. I couldn’t understand how after knowing I want to be your BFF, you still wouldn’t reach out. 2 years later, the Desiree with friends and weekend plans, just realized that I have given my number to about 10 girls in the last few months. All with intentions of meeting up. Do I despise these girls since I never reached out? Of course not, and in a perfect world we’d all be friends and hangout together, but life happens. We all get busy.

Everyone’s lives are moving in different directions at one time. Most things are not personal digs, but just another human living their life. We can only expect ourselves to be the leading role in our own reality. We can only expect ourselves to think of our every need and desire.

My conclusion being that interactions with others are not only a better way to understand them, but also a better way to understand myself. An opportunity to sit with my immediate judgements, and ask is this fair? How is this reflecting my own mindset or attitude? A lot of time, my rash views of people or situations are just a hidden insecurity of mine. When I’m annoyed that my friend keeps giving me unsolicited advice, it’s probably because I know that I also give unsolicited advice. When I assume that girl down the street is staring at me in distaste, she’s probably just thinking about some stressful shit SHE’S got going on. If I thought of myself with only a confident glow, I’d never assume some random stranger was dissing me in their head. Instead of holding remorse or discontent when these situations arise, send love for those who are fighting your same internal battles, and try to recognize how it looks from another perspective.

Or let the mirror loop keep playing and eventually you’ll understand.