Beyond Reflection

I still remember that morning when I looked in the mirror and it felt like a stranger was staring back at me. The sun was bright, streaming through my window, and I should have felt alive, confident, whole. But instead, all I saw was a dull face with tired eyes—a reflection that didn’t match the events inside.

Sometimes the mirror doesn’t show a person’s true face. It only shows skin and features, angles and flaws, a surface that can’t tell a deeper story.

For years, I believed what the mirror said. When I was young, I was obsessed with my appearance. My nose was too wide, I thought. My hair was too thin. There were blemishes on my skin. Every day, the mirror judged me, and every day, I believed it. Those judgments crept into my heart, making me question my own worth.

At school, people saw me as quiet, shy, and unusual. I blended into the background because I was afraid of being seen. What if they looked closer and saw all the things I hated about myself? The mirror had convinced me that I was never enough. So I hid.

But the truth was that inside me lived a person that no mirror could ever reveal. I was curious, thoughtful, bursting with dreams of writing and traveling and helping others. I loved to laugh until I cried, to stay up late imagining wild stories, to hear stories about the world before my grandmother was born.

None of this showed up in the mirror.

When I was nineteen, my grandmother died, and it broke me. She was the only person who looked straight at my surface and saw my heart. At her funeral, people gathered to talk about her kindness, her courage, her fierce love. I stood among those stories and realized that no one had mentioned what she looked like. No one cared. What mattered was who she was.

After that, I started questioning everything. Why had I spent so many years believing in the mirror?

I tried to change. I forced myself to talk to strangers, to make friends, to volunteer. The more I connected with people, the more I noticed something remarkable: People didn’t care about my scars or my uneven eyebrows. They cared about my laughter, my stories, the way I listened to them.

One day, while volunteering at the youth center, I met a girl named Rida. She was twelve years old, with crooked front teeth and big brown eyes. She didn’t talk to anyone. The counselors told me that she had been bullied at school and refused to look in the mirror because she thought she was ugly.

I would sit with her every afternoon, telling her stories, sharing silly jokes, letting her braid her hair. Slowly, she opened up. One day, she finally smiled, and it lit up the whole room. It made me cry, because it reminded me of myself—how trapped I had felt by a reflection that only showed my insecurities.

“Why don’t you ever look in the mirror?” I asked her softly one day.

She shrugged. “It says I’m nothing.”

I took her hand. "You know what? Mirrors lie, they only see the outside, they don't see what you're made of."

She stared at me. "What am I made of?"

"Bravery," I said. "Kindness, strength. And the best smile I've ever seen."

After that she started to believe me.

And so did I.

The mirror has never changed. It still shows my face — now old, with lines that weren't there before, hair that sometimes looks tired, eyes that are still sad. But I don't give it any more power. Because I know it can't show me the real me.

It's actually in the way I help others, the way I put my heart on paper, the way I love my family, the way I stand up for those who feel voiceless. It's actually in the laughter, the dreams, the courage, and the warmth. No glass surface will ever show it.

Sometimes, when I brush my teeth in front of the mirror, I stare at myself and remember all those years of doubt. Then I smile, not because the mirror told me, but because I am proud of who I have become.

I wish everyone knew this truth: that a mirror cannot see your soul. It cannot measure the size of your heart, or the passion in your soul, or the dreams that make you get up every morning. It cannot reflect your will to fight, or the way you comfort your crying friend, or the way you forgive, or the way you get up after a fall.

It only shows the shell.

You are so much more than that.

If you ever doubt yourself, if you ever feel worthless because of what the mirror shows you, instead close your eyes. Breathe. Listen to your heartbeat. Feel the thoughts and feelings swirling inside you, all the qualities you have carried with you since childhood. This is your true face. This is what matters.

I no longer let a piece of polished glass define me. I define me.

So the next time you stand in front of your reflection, remember:

Sometimes the mirror does not show a person's true face.

Because a person's true face is written in their actions, their dreams, their compassion, their love - far more than can ever be reflected on a piece of glass.