A while ago, I talked with a personal coach from my previous company. It was my first time to have a coach, and I immensely enjoyed the conversation. I decided that one of my goals was to learn more about myself through the four coaching sessions. 

During one conversation, she asked me to describe how I felt during a situation as I told her about the difficulty I have in my work. And then the conversation was extended to how I could describe love and fear. She said, “Love and fear are the two emotions that govern anyone’s perceptions and decision making.” 

Without a second thought, I used lots of words for love, such as “kindness, happiness, positive, care, laughter, harmony, connection, support, peace, tenderness, compassion, etc.” and I felt I could keep going for a while until I used up all my vocabulary.

The coach smiled; then she asked me to describe a very different feeling, “fear.” I suddenly became stuck. I scratched my head and tried to find the same rich vocabulary about “fear.” It was not because I don’t have fear. It just seemed fear was not on the nearest side of my brain, and I could not access it right away.

My coach smiled, and she said: you are a person who has a lens of love, so “fear” is hidden somewhere. 

After the conversation, I often think about what she said. Life is a mirror, and when we use the “love” side to look at the world, the world has lots of love and kindness. 

 The world in front of you is in fact, just the world in your mirror. The world is just a reflection of the mirror effect. It’s the same world for everyone in reality. However, it’s also a different world for everyone with different pairs of eyes.

I won’t say the world is perfect, and it’s all about kindness. However, I would say the world is more kind when you use a kind pair of eyes to see it in your mirror. 

My mom sometimes asks me why I forget that some people didn’t treat me very well when I was in high school. For example, she said that a teacher usually favors the top 3 math students, so that my teacher didn’t respond to my questions well. Or that some people thought I could not go to university, and I got hurt and discouraged at that time. After so many years, whenever my mom talks about some people, she still feels unhappy with those people who didn’t treat her lovely daughter better at that time. 

I smiled at my mom, and I told her I didn’t remember those at all. I remember some teachers who treated me very well, who always shed light on my high school life and tried to help me and guide me. That’s what I remember about my high school life.

 This is the way I unintentionally chose for my life since I was a child. Later, I heard that sometimes my lousy memory of some specific things was called “selective memory.”  I could not remember the street names even though I drove through them 100 times. However, I can quickly remember the restaurants’ names as I am fond of food. 

I like the story in one of the top 4 books in China, “Dream of the Red Chamber. A Taoist priest gave a guy a mirror. The mirror had two sides, he was recommended to look at one side, but he always chose the other side and died after some days. However, the story is not 100% related to my situation. I believe everyone has a mirror in their hand, and it’s their choice to choose which side to look at the world from. That’s why each person looks at the world differently. 

After connecting the dots to understand my choice, I realized which side I chose to look at in my mirror. That’s why I feel I haven’t met one single mean guy in my life. I always feel life treats me well, and I am lucky.

Do you think you have a mirror in your hand? Which side do you choose to look at most of the time? Love or fear? 

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