One of the things pointed out on my journey of self-discovery is that I don’t like the things that make me look at myself. I seem to be loaded for bear if anyone comes along too closely and might insinuate what I SHOULD or OUGHT to do. Because of this, one of the most challenging things is to see myself for who I really am. This stunts my emotional growth because without this knowledge of self, I cannot address them. Many of us do not clearly see our own reflections but seem to be looking at ourselves through funhouse mirrors. We view distorted aspects of ourselves. While a person with an eating disorder may look in a mirror and see themselves fluffier, many of us perceive maturing as an all-out assault from nature on our glorious youth. The things we really want to deny about ourselves are our biggest exploits.
In business, we test our ability to recover our systems and business functions annually to discover any flaws in the process. The point is not to get a perfect score but to find our weaknesses so that we can mitigate them and make the process more viable. The second value of this process is that we get accustomed to looking at various interworking’s without bias. When something actually happens, we are familiar with our workings in such fidelity that we are more readily able to flex and cope to the scenario that is thrown at us. The point here is that knowing our flaws can make us stronger if we have an open mind to them and a willingness to grown in the light of that knowledge.
We cannot see everything from our perspective and let’s face it, we see ourselves differently that the rest of society. Some of us see ourselves grander, while others of us may feel they do not measure up. Both of these are ego issues and are effective blinders. Things we don’t like in ourselves haunt us while aspects we are at peace with or may be simply untrue do not. When I feel a stir of emotions from some comment, then it is really something that I need to be focusing on. The consideration now is to take stock in the burn of the constructive criticism. As a person, if I didn’t take constructive criticism so harshly, perhaps I might actually learn something about myself that I’m too blind to see alone. Although it’s true that only the comments tinged with a hint of truth about us that we don’t like that hold the most ammunition, we should not be so quick to completely discard the others. If a friend tells me I have horns, I’m welcome to laugh it off. If a second person comments on it, I might want to take note or possibly a selfie, but if I hear it again, I probably need to start cutting holes in favorite hats.
Being part of society, we have mirrors in the people around us all the time. Especially the ones that we don’t care for. When there is something that I don’t like in someone else, it is most likely that it reflects a similar aspect in myself that I’d probably rather ignore than own. These people are the true insights. I can use that bitterness I feel toward others to identify and remove those aspects replacing them with self-love. All of us are on a mission to navigate the pitfalls and mudholes that litter the road in front of us. If we take advantage to observe our fellow travelers, we can learn from their character defects, as well as their experience instead of having to directly endure the same hardships. We don’t need to pop a tire on the same obstacle as another driver if we are watching the other drivers as well as the road. It is easy to look for differences in others, but the key to this process is to look for the similarities. It’s like a “Where’s Waldo” game in real-time except we are finding ourselves reflected in the striped shirts. My life mirrors other’s paths from time to time. Finding the benefits of other’s experience not only helps me build a connection to compassion but stokes my humanity as I relate to others on a more core level. If I’m having trouble with this then I need to ask myself why I feel the need to blaze a new trail through the thicket in front of me when I have perfectly accomplished trail guide right beside me? I need to put my ego aside in order to let my insides finally grow up.