The people who surround us mirror ourselves and the world around us in a peculiar fashion that teaches us more than we could learn by looking into a glass. However, people, like glass, come in different colors, shapes, and sizes, with a unique contour that allows us to see more of the whole self. People can reflect their colors on us, like a tinted glass, or make us look disproportionate to the world through flattery or belittling like a concave or convex reflective. Those who love us often offer a rose tinted picture, those who hate us may have a refection with a red glare with grim lighting, while those who are indifferent toward us may show us an image in which we are not after all the main focal point.
An individual makes a different sort of mirror than a group, and when the two combine they create a different reflection than the two do apart. Adam Smith says our consciousnesses are created through our understanding of the reflections individuals, groups, and the two combined offer of ourselves. I’m not sure if I agree with him, although I can easily see why he believes that—I tend to lean towards a more Aquinas view of consciousness, but then again, what do I know? Regardless, we can certainly discover quite a bit about who we are by understanding how other people see us, how they react to our actions, and how and why we respond to the way individuals and groups act toward us. For instance, I’ve learned that despite the fact I’ve always thought myself to be a wonderful communicator, my mother has taught me that I am not always understood as clearly as I think I am coming across.
My friends have mirrored images have wanted to see, not always truthful images, and have also informed me of my numerous neurosis and quirks. My sorority has a group has mirrored back the image of a leader, a person I don’t know if I, in my long term, want to be—it is much easier to be someone who lets others down than it is to try to lead them. The group of 40 something partiers on the beach, mirror back a quiet and misunderstood introspective (or maybe my parents are just 40 somethings who are now living the college years they never experienced and all I can think is surely there is more to life than that).
I think it is in our interactions with others that we learn the most about who we want to be and who we actually are. I happened to have developed a crush on this guy I go to school with which is no big deal, nothing will come of it I’m sure, but in interacting with him it has become more evident, to me at least, that I am not the person I want to be. Not to be big-headed, but I tend to think extremely well of myself most of the time; however, I can genuinely admit that I am not good enough for this guy which shockingly makes me smile and a little sad or disappointed, rather, in myself. Interacting with him has inspired me to go after the things I love and want to be, not in an attempt to pursue him (I’ve decided to not pursue him), but for my own happiness.
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