There is a time in our life when we need to strut our stuff and groove on grandiosity, when we need to be viewed as remarkable and rare, when we need to exhibit ourself in front of a mirror that reflects our self-admiration, when we need a parent to function as that mirror.
The future is unwritten. Cyberspace is the funhouse mirror of our own society, reflects our values and our faults, sometimes in terrifying exaggerations. It doesn't matter who you are today, if you don't show up in that mirror you are just not going to matter very much. Our kids have to show up in the mirror.
The thing about telescopes is that the mirror is the main component. Once that's built, you don't need to build new ones; you just need to swap out the instruments. There's nothing wrong with Hubble's mirror.
There's a paradox with self-improvement, and it is this: the ultimate goal of all self-improvement is to reach the point where you no longer feel the need to improve yourself.
Our environment, the world in which we live and work, is a mirror of our attitude and expectations. If we feel that our environment could stand some improvement, we can bring about that change for the better by improving our attitude. The world plays no favorites. It's impersonal. It doesn't care who succeeds and who fails. Nor does it care if we change. Our attitude toward life doesn't affect the world and the people in it nearly as much as it affects us.
Everyone we attract into our life is a mirror for us in certain ways. All of our relationships reflect certain parts of us. We all attract certain people into our life who have developed qualities opposite to the ones we are most identified with. In other words, they mirror our disowned selves, and we mirror theirs.
Now, being one who lived in the era of Obama, there are so many markers of improvement made. It's hard to be mindful of that, in the same way you're going, 'Oh everything's cool now!' and it isn't. But I try to be mindful of how much of an improvement there has been because that gives hope. You need hope. I need hope!
I believe that Judaism was an improvement on polytheism; Christianity was an improvement on Judaism (to some degree and in some departments only); that Protestantism is an improvement on Catholicism; that Mormonism is an improvement on Protestantism. So I give Joseph Smith credit as an innovator and as a smart fellow.
The mirror is the tool of the one who wants to do a self-portrait. And if you want to make a photo you need a mirror.
Punk is like looking at a mirror. I already have a mirror so I don't need the Offspring to remind me how gorgeous I am.
Our hearts, they need a mirror, Tessa. We see our better selves in the eyes of those who love us.
You need to take a long, hard look in the mirror and not come away thinking, "Hey, there's something wrong with this mirror."
WE ALREADY HAVE everything we need. There is no need for self-improvement. All these trips that we lay on ourselves—the heavy-duty fearing that we’re bad and hoping that we’re good, the identities that we so dearly cling to, the rage, the jealousy and the addictions of all kinds—never touch our basic wealth. They are like clouds that temporarily block the sun. But all the time our warmth and brilliance are right here. This is who we really are. We are one blink of an eye away from being fully awake.
Our masks, always in peril of smearing or cracking, in need of continuous check in the mirror or silverware, keep us in thrall to ourselves, concerned with our surfaces.
Photography is the mirror, more faithful than any actual mirror, in which we witness at every age, our own aging. The actual mirror accompanies us through time, thoughtfully and treacherously; it changes with us, so that we appear not to change.
We often read the Bible as if it were fundamentally about us: our improvement, our life, our triumph, our victory, our faith, our holiness, our godliness.