The Man In The Mirror

I was watching one of those ‘house hunter’ shows the other night and the guy looking for his house kept saying how much he wanted to impress his friends with his new house. While he had specific things he wanted in his house, the fact that he wanted to impress people kept surfacing in the conversation.

Now, I get that at some point in our life we all try to impress someone. The people we try to impress can be someone of the opposite sex that we’re attracted to, a coworker, a boss, a coach or whoever. And some of those people you have to impress in order to advance in life or gain a position on a team.

But at some point in life one has to stop trying to impress others with superficial things like cars, houses, planes, or clothes.

Why?

Because, hopefully, at some point they realize how little those things really matter in the grand scheme of life. I’m not saying people shouldn’t have nice things, there’s nothing wrong with that. But if that’s what you’re placing your value on, impressing others, I don’t think you really value yourself that much. And you have to wonder if your ‘friends’ are really your friends because they like you, or because you have stuff.

The most important person you have to be concerned about impressing, is you. If you look in the mirror and don’t like who you see, you need to do something about that. I’m not talking about how you look in your suit or new haircut either. I’m talking about who you see when you look into your eyes staring back at you.

All too often people try to ‘fix’ their lives with things on the outside when the issues are on the inside. Some people try to self medicate with drugs and/or alcohol while others keep buying more and more stuff. The problem is, it’s never enough because the drugs, alcohol, or material goods aren’t the root cause of the problems. Although they will eventually become a problem in and of themselves.

We’ve bought into this myth of having more will make us happier. A lot of times it does the exact opposite and we lose our identity. This verse from the song Luckenbach Texas sums it up pretty well:

We've been so busy
Keepin' up with the Jones
Four car garage and we're still building on
Maybe it's time we got
Back to the basics of love

I don’t know if the homeowner had self image or self confidence issues, but it sure seemed that way by how he was so concerned with impressing his friends.

Life’s too short.

We need to stop being so concerned about and letting the outside world influence us. All too often people take a career that someone else wants for them. Or they put their dreams on a shelf because someone calls them crazy for dreaming. Or they buy a house that has to impress everyone.

Be you. Better yet, be true to you. The right people will still show up in your life no matter what.