Mirror Mirror

"This situation won't really last for long". I consoled myself. After three weeks of continuous and rigorous strive for excellence, I shut my eyes for a moment and recalled a simple mistake asunder, made today. It was during the most significant moment of writing an exam that conscious common sense and analytical recollection escaped which would most definitely cost me at least a mark.

"If only I had circled the letter “c” instead of “a” in a multiple choice question today, if I had slept a little more to clear my brain, if I had …."and the list goes on….

Yawn, I need a few winks of sleep and I shall doze off but not before I have to look at the mirror and see...

The Guy In The Glass

When you get what you want in your struggle for pelf,

And the world makes you King for a day,

Then go to the mirror and look at yourself,

And see what that guy has to say.

For it isn't your Father or Mother or Wife,

Who judgment upon you must pass.

The feller whose verdict counts most in your life

Is the guy staring back from the glass.

He's the feller to please, never mind all the rest,

For he's with you clear up to the end,

And you've passed your most dangerous, difficult test

If the guy in the glass is your friend.

You may be like Jack Horner and "chisel" a plum,

And think you're a wonderful guy,

But the man in the glass says you're only a bum

If you can't look him straight in the eye.

You can fool the whole world down the pathway of years,

And get pats on the back as you pass,

But your final reward will be heartaches and tears

If you've cheated the guy in the glass.

-Dale Wimbrow, 1934.

Incognito

Some people tend to normally write off whole swathes of humanity by sticking a label on them and dismissing them.

I went to a grocery shop today where a salesgirl recognized me and came up to talk but I sneezed while I stood too near to a huge shelf and immediately she said “You always have cold, don’t you?” I calmly pointed out to her that the shelf above me probably had dust and I was sensitive to dust. But she was not pacified with my answer and retorted back “but when I saw you the other day at the hospital with your mother, you were sneezing there too”. I smiled at her and told her that poor ventilated rooms have that effect on me sometimes. But even than, she still had a look of disbelief on her face. I shrugged and walked down the aisle putting grocery into my shopping cart. The shop girl and I had two chance meetings in a space of one year inbetween and she had already labeled me on health rates pertaining to two sneezes!

Huge numbers of people are judged daily, given a label and dismissed. Or simply put into neat little boxes called generalization. Did we come across people who voiced their opinions similar to this sentence?

“Want more”? No, I didn’t think you would.

Is there any remedy for this classification or should we just drift away, not paying heed because we just don’t have the time. I know for certain that if that girl at the store was someone who had meant a lot to me, I would have liked to make her understand my situation, but since I didn’t know her, I didn’t expedite a lot of time on her.

As we grow, we learn that these labels mean something that we may not want to be associated with. Furthermore, we learn that we are labeling ourselves to others with our posture, body language, and tone of voice as well as mental and physical well being.