Tag: man in the mirror

letting go of the past

Perusing my old blogs, I can’t help but notice how much I have dwelled on the past. I’ve had it pointed out to me many times but I never realized how bad it really was. I think the secret to my future happiness depends on my getting a grip on this once and for all.

I think that the real sledgehammer to the forehead came as I was reading a series that I appropriately named “Diary of a FUS (fucked up shithead)”. While unfinished, it paints a pretty clear picture of my obsession with all that I have done that I regret but serves no real purpose other than to remind me of that which I want to forget. Digging deep into the possible psychology behind the posts the best I can come up with is that deep down not only do I regret many episodes and decisions, even entire periods of my life, but also have come to believe that my life would have taken an entirely different trajectory if I had taken a different path.

But I wouldn’t be the person I am today, for better or for worse, if not for those errors in judgment and behavior that haunt me to this day. Every stupid thing I’ve said; every poor decision; every time I failed to listen to the little voice in my head; every time I ignored my better instincts has in some way formed my current self. I am now careful to speak and quick to listen. I now question everything before I make a rash judgment. I now ignore my initial instinct to be trusting and instead ask the hard questions and dig deeper. I am hyper aware of what comes out of my mouth and very sensitive to what my face is saying when I’m listening. Perhaps most important, I always try to be kind to everyone: even those who don’t necessarily deserve it. Every one of these modified behaviors stems from one or more formative incidents that I wish that I could forget. Incidents that I have played out in my head and consequently beaten myself to metaphorical death over.

I have come to a major realization that in committing so many faux pas in behavior that it was always when I was trying to be something or someone that I was. The difference between the old, guilt-ridden me and the new me is that I now know who I am and I feel I know my place in this world. I embrace my smallness when I once chased success and stature. Despite my gruff appearance I am actually OK with being quite gentle. My facial expressions often express consternation but in fact it usually means that I am thinking about something and I am not aware that I look like that and I am in fact most likely thinking happy thoughts. While I often obsessed over my own predicament and weighed my worth in possessions, I now am happy with a modest lifestyle and I am quite generous for a man of my means. While I merely coexisted with my fellow man before, I now care deeply about the welfare of others and genuinely make an effort to alleviate the pain and sadness through simple acts and gestures.

Does it really matter what we were once or is it most relevant what we are now? How important is the past, if amends are made and lessons are learned, if we are now better people? Regardless of the twisted and winding paths we took, the obstacles we climbed over and how many times we had to turn around and start over, dusting ourselves off, isn’t the end result what matters?

I would love to change some things that I have done and said. I have hurt people and I know that I have missed many opportunities that, had I embraced, my life would be very different today. But I can’t. “Redo’s” only happen in the movies. What I do know is that lying awake at night beating the shit out of myself is doing nothing also. It’s time to recognize the past for what it is, it’s over and done with. I have definitely learned my lessons and I almost like who I am today. I can look in the mirror and be ok with the man staring back at me. He forgives me and I should as well. I have acquired many things due to my checkered past, the best of which is wisdom. I may not have known how to do the right thing before. But I do now and that is all that matters.

The rearview mirror is small, the windshield is large. That is because the past is only worth a small view but the present looms large before us and everything that matters is yet to come. If you are in the right place and frame of mind to receive it.

I have been blessed with opportunity after opportunity lately. Life is good. I believe that the positive energy I have tried to put out into the world has come back to me. Karma is not a bitch but instead the great reckoner and equalizer of the universe. Karma is not rewarding the me of the past, but instead the new me. The one that finally realized, no matter how late in life, that the past is just that. But today is a gift, that’s why it is called the Present.

The man in the mirror

We live in a vain, narcissistic and selfie-obsessed world. We have all had to step around people blocking sidewalks and paths taking pictures of themselves. We all have that FB friend who posts pictures of every meal and of every stop they make. I know a woman who has no less than thousands of selfies on her phone, she is constantly picking up her phone and snapping a shot. The worse thing is she is over 40 and still making “duck” faces. Ladies, please. You need to know when you are too old to do that.

I never caught the selfie bug. I hate pictures of myself so I NEVER take selfies. In fact, I dive into bushes to avoid being photographed at all. Photos of me are rare because I just don’t like how I look and how I feel.

They’re like mirrors.

I don’t look at them either.

Mirrors are not a marvel of invention. It’s just glass, made from sand. Yet they wield an incredible power. They can force a person who looks into it to not see the whole picture but to only focus on the flaws. The most beautiful woman in the world could look in the mirror and immediately focus on a tiny birthmark on her forehead. And that birthmark troubles her, and brings on an insecurity so powerful that she is rendered unable to see her beauty.

Of course, there is another reason why one might not like mirrors. They just don’t like the person looking back at them.

I recently had lunch with a dear friend and the “man (or woman) in the mirror” came up. I haphazardly mentioned it in conversation and my she immediately teared up. Confused, I patiently waited for her to enlighten me as to the cause of her tears. As it turns out when she was younger (pre-puberty) she had Alopecia. Yup, at the age in which kids are the most cruel she was completely bald. This wonderful young lady, I have no reason to believe that she was any less wonderful then because she’s pretty damned amazing now, was so traumatized that she wouldn’t look in a mirror. I let her tell her tale of bullying and general harassment and let her compose herself. Once it was appropriate I offered up that I was speaking more about looking in the mirror and not liking the person you are.

“It was both” she said. The bullying made her not like herself. The bullies had done their damage.

She fortunately grew hair as a teenager but it wasn’t a magic elixir. The scars remain.

The tragedy is that her condition, and the subsequent bullying did far more damage than just mere insecurities about her appearance. It massively affected her entire self image, physical, psychological and emotional. To the point that she didn’t want to look in the mirror. She is mostly over it, but it’s still bubbling under the surface. 0

Despite having blogged about this topic before, our conversation made me revisit it.

For the longest time I made it a strict policy to not look at any reflective surface except the mirror while shaving. Partially due to a fear of a massive blood loss from a shaving cut, also that for the longest time I hated how I looked. All I saw was an overweight guy with several jowls, pale complexion and a flabby physique. I also knew that even if I was able to overcome all of those physical things, I still didn’t want to look at my reflection because I didn’t like who I was as a person. The same with photos, which I would rather dive into a shrubbery head first than be caught by the camera lense.

I believe, hell I know, that there are some seriously morally reprehensible people who have no problem looking at their reflection. I also know that there are plenty of people with physical flaws, some downright unattractive, that can look in the mirror effortlessly. I have never been either one of them. I envy them. I have always been blessed/cursed with a heightened self-awareness masquerading as a moral compass. I had the wonderful skill to be markedly aware that I was not on the right path morally and spiritually yet have no desire to work on it.

Until one day when I forced myself to stand there and take a good, hard look. I did an inventory of what I could change about my appearance and what I couldn’t. That was the easy part. The belly could be vanquished by better choices in food, a gym membership and a little self-discipline. The pasty complexion could be remedied by going outside instead of sleeping until noon. The sunken eyes, well a sharp reduction in my alcohol consumption was all that was required. The receding hairline and bad teeth, well I would just have to live with those. Again, as hard as it was for a person who wrapped in a towel as I passed a mirror after showering, it was still the easy part. Liking the guy that I did see as a person proved to be far more difficult.

Self-examination, if done properly, requires a keen and unflinching eye and you need a goal. You have to be a Forensic Accountant to do it right, for the inevitable outcome is that you are going to find things that have to be brought to the boss’s attention regardless of how well they are going to be received. When I turned my powers of observation on myself I found out more than I wanted and not much of it was good. But I was determined to do a deep dive and really, for once and for all, improve myself and be the person I wanted to be. It was exactly as hard as I thought it would be. But through brutal honesty and an unflinching eye I learned what I had to do.

My behavior, my attitude, my sense of self, my humor and my relationships with those close to me all needed a veritable shitload of work. It started with my children. I stopped fighting with them and reminded myself that I’m supposed to be the adult in the room. I stopped fighting with my wife because I’d have more luck wrestling a spoon from a fat lady at the Cheesecake Factory than I would winning an argument or changing a viewpoint with her. I started being nicer in general to everybody. I became a better listener. I had known all of these things were my Achilles heel and once I started I did it all at once. But it wasn’t until I got really sick and hit rock bottom (around the time that I started this blog) that it all fell into place. No longer the driving force that I once was in my children’s life that I was; no longer the “go-to” indispensable man at work; no longer the breadwinner and backbone of my family I realized that I would have to find a new purpose. I am happy to report that life showed it to me in due time. I have been willingly forced into a life of altruism; volunteerism, charity, Freemasonry and part-time impromptu amateur motivational speaker. I even occasionally serve as an inspiration to someone who thought that they hit rock bottom. Until they heard my story.

I almost like who I have become with a few minor exceptions.

My friend that I had lunch with did have difficulty finally staring at her own image and accepting what she saw. At the end of the day she realized that those cruel, heartless pricks that made her feel bad about herself didn’t have any power over her except the insults. They didn’t know her, the person she would become and how awesome she is. She is now a happily married, independently successful businesswoman and an amazing, funny and caring person. She wins. But nevertheless, she still had to deal with both issues I have spoken of, not liking her reflection over the physical and the emotional.

Me, I had a longer journey than she did, but I got there. The same way we all make major steps forward.

I waited until I couldn’t any longer.