People are Mirrors(and you don’t get to look away)
By Anderson Routh, Armchair Philosopher and comedian
I think, in general, people (myself included) are infatuated with the idea of things more than they love ’em in reality. This thought immediately conjures a favorite concept: people are mirrors. There are four nouns in existence that I’ve found will deliver the most uncomfortable truths to you—drunk folks, children, scales, and most importantly, mirrors. Mirrors reflect every blemish, uninvited hair, and fluctuation in mass, as well as every good angle, bangin’ hair-do, and everything we love about ourselves. People are no different.
The characteristics we absolutely admire and/or loathe in others are the very ones we own ourselves—either to nurture or neglect at our will, or lack thereof. I think empathy and animosity are born from these reflections.
Here’s an example: you have a coworker who’s efficient, hardworking, and adventurous. You consciously and unconsciously bond over the similarities, or admire them for actualizing characteristics you value. If these are traits you nurture—or want to—then it’s a pleasant reflection.
Another example: you have a friend or acquaintance who’s hyper-critical, self-absorbed, and short-sighted. You either bond via inertia over those similarities or resent them for embodying traits you don’t value. If these are characteristics you neglect—or want to—then it’s an unpleasant reflection.
Either way, it’s all us—how and what we think.
The very characteristics we endear and are repulsed by in others are thriving, surviving, and subsisting in us. We’re only aware of them because they exist in us. The ways we understand, love, and hate others are the ways we understand, love, and hate ourselves. This means pain comes from the disconnect between idea and reality—from what you believe your reflection should, could, or must be versus what you’re seeing that it is.
Here’s the omelette to that word scramble: being infatuated with a concept like “people are mirrors” is easier than loving it. Intent is as effortless as infatuation. Love requires action, and effort is difficult.
Loving the concept means living it. Living it means taking responsibility for the maintenance of both pimples and patches of clear skin. For the sparkling chompers and the cavities. For the well-trained muscles and layers of ample adipose tissue.
And here’s where it gets uncomfortable in a way that actually matters: you don’t get to opt out of the reflection. You can look away, dim the lights, avoid certain people, curate your surroundings like an Instagram feed so you only ever see what flatters you. But the reflection doesn’t disappear—it just waits. Like that one Black Mirror episode you paused because it felt a little too personal, it’ll be right there when you come back. It shows up in different faces, different situations, and different versions of the same lesson until you decide to face it head on.
Loving the idea of self-awareness is easy because it’s clean. It’s conceptual. It feels productive without demanding much from you—like watching a TED Talk and convincing yourself you’ve already changed. But actually practicing it? That’s messy. That’s catching yourself mid-judgment and asking, “Where is that in me?” That’s sitting with the irritation someone sparks in you and resisting the urge to make it entirely about them—no villain arc, no main-character exemption. That’s recognizing that admiration isn’t just appreciation—it’s a quiet admission of something you’re either building or avoiding in yourself. Like seeing someone with that “locked in” discipline and realizing…yeah, you’ve been hitting “remind me tomorrow” on your own potential.
There’s also grace in this. Because if the worst traits you see are yours in some form, then so are the best ones. The patience, discipline, courage, and honesty—those aren’t foreign qualities. They’re familiar. Recognizable. Possible. It’s less “superpower origin story” and more training montage—reps, failures, small wins no one claps for.
So the work isn’t to eliminate the mirror. It’s to clean it, to stand in front of it longer, and to stop negotiating with what you see. No filters, no angles, no pretending you’re in your “era” without doing the work that earns it. Trade the fantasy of who you could be for the responsibility of who you are becoming.
Maybe the real question isn’t just how close your idea matches your reflection—but whether you’re willing to do the daily, unglamorous work required to bring them into alignment. Not the highlight reel—the behind-the-scenes footage you’d probably skip if it wasn’t yours.
