Do you remember the magic mirror in the fairy tale Snow White? The evil and vain queen/stepmother would ask her magic mirror “who is the fairest of them all?” She became violent and murderous when the mirror focused on anyone but her.
I think we all need to be a bit more selfish and get our own version of the magic mirror.
Sounds crazy, right? Hear me out for a second.
When I was last shopping a car, and was already thinking of the model I was interested in, I started to see it everywhere. Where did they all suddenly come from?
There’s a part of the brain called the reticular formation. One of its jobs is to help us focus on what we’re most interested in and filter out the things that we’re not especially interested in. It’s as though it makes some things “bigger” and other things “smaller”, at least when it comes to what we pay attention to.
Sometimes we pretend to ourselves that we’re looking at the world through a sparkling, clear window, seeing whatever there is to see. The truth is that we’re looking at the world through distorted, fun house mirrors that make some things big and other things small, according to what interests and repels us.
It’s not always so easy to know what motives or standards are being used to guide the filter. There are many unconscious desires or fears at work that we’re often dimly aware of, if at all.
One thing’s for sure. We’re all “self-centered”.
I look at the world according to the way that my individual heart and mind works. Whether my motives or standards are selfish or giving, I’m still focused on my motives and standards. I’m focused on what’s important to me, consciously or unconsciously.
OK. So what?
The other night I was driving down a dark country road and someone left a tall, heavy garbage can sticking way into the street. Boom! The right side mirror of my car was history.
Not surprising that I started to think a little about mirrors and paying attention.
Where are we focusing our attention?
Do we focus on where we are, or where we’re going, or where we’ve been?
Or, are we focusing our attention on where everyone else is, where they’re going, what they’ve done?
When I’m looking to test the world and see if it measures up to my standards, do I look only outside myself? Do I ever measure myself? I may have the most wonderful motives and standards, but do I apply them to myself?
I know that most of us are way too critical of ourselves. We are so fond of telling ourselves about all the things that are impossible for us, about all the things we can’t do and will never do. We hate feeling small, yet we keep pushing ourselves down.
Enough already. I’m breaking free of that nonsense. But do I free myself of being overcritical towards myself by pushing that negative energy toward the world? It’s my experience that the more critical I am towards others, the more blameworthy I become, and the more that little voice finds opportunities to tear me up.
I once read that there’s two ways of thinking about the world.
The first way is to think of the world in terms of oppressors and victims and blame. We think that the victims are so different from the oppressors, but history is full of victims that rose up to become oppressors. They’re both part of a common mindset.
The victim often becomes willing to do nearly anything to make the victimization stop – even if it means becoming the oppressor. In this way of thinking the only way to avoid being a victim is to become more powerful than anyone who might harm me.
The other way of thinking wants to stop the blame game and focus on action. We assume that we can reach our goals, and that the key issue is not what someone else is doing to stop us.
Instead I ask, What am I doing that’s getting in the way of accomplishing what I want? What can I do right now to get closer to my targets?
Our mirror of awareness is too often focused outward on the gaps in everything and everyone around us, focused on what’s wrong with the world, and how it’s messing up my life.
It’s time to become a little like the evil queen. Take the magic mirror that looks for gaps, and turn it on yourself. At the same time, change it’s focus so that it’s not focused on gaps in you that make you “wrong”.
Focus that mirror on the gaps between where you are and where you want to go, looking for solutions, looking for how you can move into action.
See you at the finish line.
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