I have a great mom lecture on the way, y’all. I’m going to try it out on all of you.
I have a mirror in my bathroom that is on a hinge; it allows me to angle the mirror up or down a certain degree. I can’t see my entire body with it, but it does help me to see a bit more without having to jump up and down like a weirdo. I also have a little canvas on the wall perpendicular to the mirror. It says “choose happy” to remind me to choose positivity each day. To be 100% honest with you, I don’t always choose happiness every day, but I am trying.
Recently, after a super exhausting day, I was brushing my teeth and I happened to look into the mirror, which was aimed down as I had left it that morning. The “choose happy” canvas looked crooked. It kinda felt like my day… Happy was certainly not on point that day. I shoved the mirror all the way up and, as you can imagine, the canvas was crooked looking then too.
Looking into the mirror, all I saw was a crooked version of happy. It put me off a bit because I wanted everything to look perfect and, well, happy.
When I stepped back and looked at the whole picture, you guessed it, the canvas was straight on the wall even though it was crooked in the mirror. The canvas had never moved despite my constant mirror adjustments.
I realized the problem was never with the canvas, it was an issue with the mirror angle. I was a little bit annoyed that the reflection didn’t accurately portray reality, but then I realized all I had to do was adjust the lens I was looking through. I straightened the mirror and, of course, the canvas looked perfectly straight in reality and in the mirror.
At first, I took this as a lesson to try and always make sure that the lens I am looking through is straight and not crooked. This way, I would constantly be adjusting myself to make sure that I can see things clearly and always “choose happy” as well as any other important lesson I may need to apply this to. There are plenty of things I can apply this to, like how I look at other people for example. But upon further examination of the mirror and the canvas, I thought of something else.
Instead of looking through a lens that constantly needs adjusting in every situation, I should start looking directly at the object itself. Instead of looking at the canvas through the crooked mirror, I should just look at the canvas itself. Instead of looking at the homeless woman on the street and trying to readjust my lens to decide what the Christian response is or what the logical person would do, I should just look at her for exactly what I see and respond accordingly.
Trying to adjust a lens all the time is exhausting and let’s be real, we don’t have that much time and it’s hard to try to perfect the angle all the time. So, let’s stop looking at the lens and look at the canvas itself, which is always straight.