Every Person We Meet in Life Is a Mirror

When life presents us with the cold, hard truth. We meet so many people in life, some we like right away, others remind us all too well why being alone is the second best thing in the world. However, since nothing in life happens without reason, we can also confidently assume that every interpersonal encounter is meaningful to us in some way. Some acquaintances affect us only fleetingly, but still leave their mark on us. Some friendships are forever, some relationships are meant for us to discover what we don't want. Many potential relationships fall by the wayside or don't make it past the oft-cited ships passing in the night. The fact is, however, that every person we meet can tell us something about ourselves. They are a mirror of ourselves and can even teach us a thing or two if we let them. Find out why in this article.

Some people teach us about our own feelings

It sounds funny at first, but it's true. Feelings are like the strings of an instrument, without resonating with something, they would not produce sound. Human beings therefore need other human beings to sound out their emotions. This can feel good or bad, but it is in any case a lesson for life – each feeling teaches us something different.

Irritability

Putting our own needs on the back burner for too long leads to overwhelm. When that happens, we’re not likely to wish anyone any good. If we don't keep an eye on this development, we turn into ticking time bombs that everyone eventually just avoids or fears.

Anger

Anger narrows our focus to a knife’s edge that takes up all of our thinking and feeling. Anger takes our breath away and fogs our senses equally, We often react irrationally and outside of any social convention. People who make us angry show us our limits and grant us a brief but violent glimpse of the dangerous animal that lies dormant in each or every one of us. When someone says things to us that make us angry, it's often the truth, but we literally don't want to acknowledge it. We react in such an affected way because the person or person hits the mark with his or her statement.

Envy

The green monster lurks in all of us. We all have an Achilles' heel where we feel cheated by life and shortchanged by fate. Of course, this is not true, we have merely lost sight of the wealth we have already been given. Envy is a sure sign that we have lost sight of gratitude. Before we get a lesson in humility from the universe, we should rather be grateful every day for everything that has been given to us so far.

Fear

Fear reminds us that not everything can be under our control. We fear it so much because loss of control is difficult for our mind to grasp and panics our emotions. It paralyzes all of our circuits and leaves us in a fog of despair and helplessness.

Hate

Hate is a red flag that we should not ignore. How much have we been hurt that we allow powerful hate to enter our innermost being? Only love can counteract this. Only when we can feel it towards ourselves are we able to give it away to others. The Irish poet George Bernard Shaw once wrote "Hate is closer to love than indifference." We should make the best use of this closeness.

Shame

Shame stirs in us when we are reminded of our dark sides and tendencies. People shame us, but not always with words – sometimes they do it just by being the way we would like to be. However, completely good people are rare and more likely to be found in the circle of saints and spiritual beings than on earth. We can understand shame as a kind of billboard sign that can steer us towards good deeds. We should not have to be ashamed of desires, passions and needs.

Guilt

Guilt reminds us that we alone are responsible for our words and actions and no one else. It is like a stone in our shoe, constantly calling attention and wanting to be noticed. Living with guilt can wear us down inside. The alternative: repent and do penance. If that sounds too churchy - an apology would be a good start.

Blame

Blame is a stepchild of guilt; similarly, it makes us act childishly. It’s a bit like putting our hands in front of our eyes and thinking we can't be seen anymore. It is immature and infantile not to face a responsibility. Those who constantly point the finger at others should not be surprised if they eventually stand alone.

Grief

Grief demands acceptance from us, it literally forces us to see the unchangeable for what it is. It is certainly the most intense of all feelings and is perceived and processed very differently by each person. One can emerge from it strengthened and consolidated as from no other lesson in life, but it can hit us so hard that our own will to live dries up. We can only oppose grief with our willpower, otherwise we have no effective strategies against it. Once we have overcome it, however, it sharpens our focus on the essentials and conscientiously sorts out the unimportant things that threaten to be a waste of time and energy.

Love

Love, yes, where is love in this sober emotional scenario? We should not really regard it as a singular emotion that appears completely independently and detached from all other emotional states. Love should ideally be our basic attitude toward other people. If we can make it our attitude towards life, it will be the basis for every upcoming interpersonal encounter. At first glance, of course, this sounds superhuman and completely unrealistic, however, we could work on it a little bit every day. The exercise is: Meet strangers openly and in a friendly manner. Try to leave mistrust and suspicion out of it and give this acquaintance every starting advantage there is. Love is nothing else than boundless acceptance. Reality ensures that the framework in which it takes place remains manageable.

Today’s Conclusion

Mirror phenomena with the eureka effect. Not to react or to react completely neutrally to other people would be an impossibility. We would then be androids or robots, machines without feelings and free will. The way other people strike cords within us does not always have to rise to harmonious symphonies, some pairings just sound hollow, others are a mere echo. The discords remain in our memory for a particularly long time. In the long run, however, we profit the most from them. With this knowledge in hand, future encounters should be much easier. Even if we are not big fans of social interaction, we can always be curious about what we can learn from new acquaintances. If we view each lesson as a building block for the best version of ourselves, there's nothing standing in the way of growing and blossoming into infinity. That's it for today.