by Julie Young

Created on: February 12, 2009

What a sick society we live in, to place mirrors as the essential "worthy" or "unworthy" decor in every household, restaurant, museum, you name it. Image is everything, or so we've all been believing. Yet we have not only been believing, we have been teaching this principle that "image is everything." Not by our words, not by our advice, but by our own selves falling for the most un-intelligent notion, and by then displaying a personal example for others to follow. We tell others how beautiful they are, not to worry about the opinion of others, to be confident. Yet where do we find ourselves? In front of the next perfectly placed mirror, picking and pulling and straightening and applying, giving ourselves that particular look as the degrading thoughts run through our minds. We are silently demonstrating to anyone around us that this is where we judge ourselves for what we are worth.

Imagine being called fat at the age of four and having no other memory prior to that incident. You, at that delicate age, begin to feel as though something is wrong with you. Time goes on, and you realize, of course something is wrong with you! You are not perfect, you do not meet society's ideal, shame on you. You begin dieting in elementary school, you starve yourself in middle school, you have no friends, your life is revolved around your thoughts, and your thoughts include nothing but the millions of things you hate and wish to change about yourself. You almost took your own life on three seperate occassions.

That is how I lived my life for years, and you bet I have fought hard to be where I am today, and to have gained the understanding I now have. While visiting Guatemala to teach English, I encountered one of the most maddening realizations about North America: mirrors. Do you know what kind of trouble you have to go to if you want a personal mirror in other countries? Before you get yourself going on "American pride" I want you to think about this reality. Take your thoughts a little deeper. What would the world be like in it's completely natural state? What would we be like in our completely natural state? Who invented the mirror? Why is it our society places mirrors as necessity? Now, I would be lying to you if I said I didn't look at mirrors occassionally, but you know what I see when I look in the mirror? I see myself. I don't see all of the imperfections, all the things that people may or may not judge me for, all the things that bother me if I look too hard and too closely.

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