Others are Only Mirrors of You
佚名 / Anonymous
The first time you meet someone， in the first moment you form an impression in your mind of that person. Your reactions to other people， however， are really just barometers for how you perceive yourself. Your reactions to others say more about you than they do about others. You cannot really love or hate something about another person unless it reflects something you love or hate about yourself. We are usually drawn to those who are most like us and tend to dislike those who display those aspects of ourselves that we dislike.
Therefore， you can allow others to be the mirror to illuminate more clearly your own feelings of self-worth. Conversely， you can view the people you judge negatively as mirrors to show you what you are not accepting about yourself.
To coexist peacefully with others， you will need to learn tolerance. A big challenge is to shift your perspective radically from judgment of other to a lifelong exploration of yourself. Your task is to assess all the decisions， judgments you make onto others and to begin to view them as clues to how you can heal yourself and become whole.
I recently had a business lunch with a man who displayed objectionable table manners. My first reaction was to judge him as offensive and his table manners as disgusting. When I noticed that I was judging him， I stopped and asked myself what I was feeling. I discovered that I was embarrassed to be seen with someone who was chewing with his mouth open and loudly blowing his nose. I was astonished to find how much I cared about how the other people in the restaurant perceived me.
Remember that your judgment of someone will not serve as a protective shield against you becoming like him. Just because I judged my lunch partner as offensive does not prevent me from ever looking or acting like him. In the same way， extending tolerance to him would not cause me to suddenly begin chewing my food with my mouth open.