Starting with the Woman in the Mirror

I'm starting with the man in the mirror/I'm asking him to change his ways./And no message could have been any clearer/If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make a change.

Michael Jackson's "Man in the Mirror" has become my anthem for 2009. I rediscovered the song after he died, and the lyrics made a lot of sense to me, likely because one theme, or repeated action, I should say, in my book (the thesis--but I'm going to call it a "book" to hopefully manifest its publication) is looking at myself in the mirror.

As an only child growing up, I learned to rely on myself in many ways. I became very independent, but more so, I was able to just enjoy my own company, a trait which carried over into adulthood. I started doing this weird thing as a kid: If I was by myself and something happened, maybe I tripped over my own feet or saw a person I knew from school while out shopping, or whatever really, I would find some kind of reflective surface and catch my own eye. It was like there was always someone there to share the moment with.

And maybe it's embarrassing to admit, but I still do this all the time, without even thinking about it. Perhaps it's comforting to know that the girl looking back at me isn't going anywhere, that she'll always respond with a quick smile, a brow-raised glance, or that eye-roll of which we are both so fond.

Anyway. A lot has changed for me in this past year, aside from moving into my own place and finishing grad school. It's more of an attitude-adjustment. (And not the kind my mom warned me I needed when I was being snotty as a kid.) For a long time, I'd forgotten about my "woman in the mirror." Holy Jesus that sounds cheesy, and I do apologize, but it's true. I was so concerned with pleasing other people, of ensuring that those people liked me, that I was being the type of girl I thought other people wanted me to be. I didn't just aim to please my long-term boyfriend, but my parents, friends, anyone, really. But who wasn't I pleasing? Ah, yes, myself. Bad idea.

Well, that's changed. Of course I still want people to like me, so please do continue to do so, but I realized that if I wished for things to change in my life, I needed to start with me. There's a principle called the Markov property, which states that future outcomes only depend on the present, not on the past. While it's a scary mathematical process, I've found this property to be applicable to life. Here's how it was posed to me: If you flip a coin a hundred times and it always lands on heads, what's the probability that it will land on heads the 101st flip? Fifty-fifty.

So, no matter what my part behavior has been, no matter if I've been neglecting that chick in the mirror, I always have a chance to make that change. I can go either way, fifty-fifty. And it's somewhat terrifying for me to make the choice to not act in ways that I think will convince people to like me or to keep liking me. Especially because I have always been that pleaser who tries to ensure that they do and will.

Right now there is one person I want to please, who I can no longer disappoint. She's staring right back at me in the mirror. And just rolled her eyes a little bit because that sounded really corny. But hey, if you wanna make the world a better place, you gotta take a look at yourself and make that change...

***Note: I do realize that what MJ is talking about in the song is making the world at large a better place, helping the homeless, etc. I'm just narcissistic-ly applying it to my own little world, okay? Okay.