A Warped Mirror

People often say that those around us act as mirrors, reflecting back who we are. But not all mirrors tell the truth. Some distort, exaggerate, or invent entirely new images. Learning to tell the difference may be one of the more difficult tasks in a life of reflection.

For nearly three decades, my sister and I have observed my brother’s wife from a careful distance. She is controlling and, at times, detached from reality. Her perceptions often appear self-serving—used to justify her behavior or to assign blame to others, even those only loosely connected to her life.

Once, my sister arranged to meet her for lunch. She arrived an hour late and explained, without hesitation, that a store clerk had sold her a shirt stained with blood. There was no irony in her tone, no awareness of how implausible the story sounded. It was simply her version of reality.

In recent years, I have occasionally shared photos of my weekend hikes in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. From these fragments—despite having met me only a handful of times over decades—she constructed a narrative about my life: that I live a carefree, “hippy-happy” existence in the United States, traveling the world while neglecting my ill mother. In truth, my mother underwent only a minor surgery last summer. My sister-in-law herself has barely seen her in twenty years.

It would be easy to dismiss her as irrational and leave it there. But her way of seeing the world unsettles me for another reason: it forces me to ask how much of my own perception is shaped by distortion, if not of facts, then of feeling.

Unlike her, I do not project blame outward. I turn it inward.

My career in academia has followed a gradual descent—from a higher-tier institution to lower-tier ones. The reasons are not mysterious. Social navigation has never been my strength. I invested heavily in research and teaching, largely overlooking the importance of networking and institutional politics, which often determine professional advancement.

With each move, the environment shifted in ways that were difficult to ignore: less-prepared students, fewer opportunities for collaboration, lower pay, and more visible, if petty, politics. Diversity diminished, and the culture became more provincial. Administrative quality often followed suit. Within a month of arriving at a new institution, I could usually see the patterns that would define my experience.

These dynamics are not unique to academia. They are, in many ways, universal. Yet knowing this does not make them easier to endure. I find it difficult to remain in an environment that feels constricting, where my work and growth seem to stall. So I move on, hoping for something better—while carrying with me a familiar set of emotions: unease, frustration, a sense of being undervalued.

If my sister-in-law distorts reality to protect herself, I distort it in another way—by amplifying the emotional weight of what I experience. I do not invent stories, but I struggle to let them go. The result is a quieter form of suffering: not dramatic, but persistent.

Eckhart Tolle would describe this as resistance—the mind’s refusal to accept what is. In Buddhist terms, it echoes the idea of “随顺”: to go along with, to accept the flow of circumstances without unnecessary struggle. Yet acceptance, in practice, is not simple. It can feel uncomfortably close to resignation, especially when one believes that change is both possible and necessary.

This is the tension I continue to live with: how to see clearly without being consumed by what I see; how to accept reality without surrendering the desire to improve it. If people are mirrors, then perhaps the task is not simply to look, but to discern which reflections can be trusted—and which must be set aside.

Some mirrors reveal. Others distort. Wisdom lies in knowing the difference.
:::