mirror, mirror

confession: i read someone's diary.


i read with some spellbound interest. i read with a measure of ineffable envy. but mostly i read with a very healthy dose of utter disdain. and i read with a preponderance of caustic judgment. and i read with a lion's share of harsh criticism.


i couldn't believe some of the stuff this person did...over and over and over again. like it didn't even matter. like they didn't care to learn from their mistakes. clearly they never read back through their previous entries. they couldn't have! otherwise they wouldn't keep making the same foolish missteps and errors in judgment.


don't get me wrong; there were times when it seemed like they were on track and right on target...but mostly it was the same ridiculous rashness...it seemed to be a never ending rinse and repeat cycle...i was left shaking my head, frustrated for the individual who just didn't seem to get it.


then i realized the diary was mine.


when i got off my high horse and realized i certainly and obviously wasn't above the blunders i'd been reading about with such disappointment, i had to admit that the past is a teacher. i had, in fact, been learning along the way. i really wasn't making the same mistakes with as much regularity as i thought, once i ascertained that i didn't really want to keep doing what i was doing.

the truth is, that diary was every bit me as my reflection in a mirror. and i didn't like a lot of what i read there, but it was me. i was determined to do something about myself. i resolved i would never go down that road again. those roads. all the issues and miscalculations and slips of the tongue that i wasn't proud of in that diary were behind me. i was closing the book on them. literally.


a wise man once wrote, "act on what you hear! those who hear and don't act are like those who glance in the mirror, walk away, and two minutes later have no idea who they are, what they look like." i was hearing a call for continued change for the better with every entry i read. i saw the writing on the wall, and the message was as clear as my reflection in the looking glass. the mirror, mirror on the wall was telling me who i was and what i looked like. and the diary wasn't lying either.


the way i see it, you can't long ignore what you see and hear about yourself. you can't long sustain the lack of doing something about your condition. i mean, you can, but you'll frustrate yourself and others. and the danger is hypocrisy, because the very things you loathe in others are likely the very things about yourself that you need to change.


this isn't a finger pointing. well, it is. but not at you. at me. all i want to leave you with is a reminder to not forget where you've come from, and to not walk away unchanged when you see an image of yourself that you don't love or aren't proud of. like i've intimated--no, outright said--before, don't forget your past or where you came from. the past is a teacher; learn from it. remember it. don't relive it. revolutionize it. renovate it. restore it. recreate it. 


the next time you pick up that diary and thumb through the pages that leave a bad taste in your mouth, be reminded that's not you anymore. you confessed your faults. now move on.