Comparison: Mulan’s Famous Words

​“Who is that girl I see, staring straight back at me? When will my reflection show who I am inside?”
            When we were kids, we loved this movie. A girl being pushed to be someone she wasn’t, pulled herself together to save her family by being someone no one expected her to be. She ends up saving the entire world. WHO RUN THE WORLD? GIRLS
            But as kids, we couldn’t comprehend the dilemma that Mulan had before going off to save the world.
            At the beginning of the movie, Mulan was being tucked and pulled in so many different directions to go before a woman who would connect her with a man in the town. The other women had it all together. No clumsiness and not a single hair out of place, but Mulan on the other had, was looking absolutely crazy trying to FIT IN with these other women. She ended up embarrassing herself and her family trying to be someone that she wasn’t. When she finally got a moment to herself, she wiped away her makeup and took off all the extra things that wasn’t her. She didn’t even recognize herself. In her quest to please everyone else, she lost who she really was.
 
            Comparison can do that to you. Comparison can make you lose sight of who you are meant to be. It can cause your internal flame to be dimmed because you feel as if your light isn’t as bright as the other lights around you. When you live in the constant state of comparison, you forget the amazing purpose and vision that you possess because it doesn’t seem the match up with the others around you and what they look like. For some reason, we feel as if those we see on social media have lights that were meant to dim our own, when in reality, we all have lights that were meant to shine in different place, different times, and for different purposes.
            But if I’m constantly comparing myself to others, I can’t see or understand how my purpose is meant to be fulfilled. I can’t see the beauty that I possess. I can’t see the uniqueness and value that my talent has, just because someone else has the same one. I can’t look in the mirror and see success if my view of success is altered because of what social media shows me success is.
            We place all that we are created to be in the hands of others who, without knowing, make us feel less than amazing because they themselves are amazing. We start to question if this is what we really want in life. We start to question our dreams and talents and wonder if they’re really any good or make sense. We deny ourselves the place in this world we’ve been given, just because we think someone has taken all the space available for that “thing”. By the time we’re done comparing ourselves, we’ve lost sight of who we are and wonder when the REAL US will be reflected back.
            I believe it’s when we take time to look in the mirror and realize that we aren’t who we know we’re meant to be that change comes. When we become dissatisfied with what we see in the mirror, then we can jump start our lives and who we were meant to be.
            I leave you with this personal testimony. It was my junior year in college and I was trying my best to fit in. I wanted the college experience some of my friends were having. By this time, I had been giving up the goods to a few guys on campus. My freshman year, I promised myself that I would never sleep with a guy who I wasn’t in a relationship with or didn’t like... but I had just been dropped off to my dorm room by my new Friend with Benefits. We had no connection, no relationship, no nothing. But we were sleeping together.
            When I got back to my dorm room, I looked in the mirror. Not to see if I had a zit, but I finally took a GOOD look in the mirror. I looked directly into my eyes. They weren’t mine. I took a minute to examine my face. It wasn’t mine. I had no idea who I was looking at.
            I stepped back and asked her “Who are you?”. I didn’t even recognize myself anymore. I had gotten to a low place, a place where the REAL ME knew I didn’t belong. It was in that moment I realized that I had to change. I had to get myself together. I wasn’t reflecting who I was created to be inside. I don’t know WHO that was looking back at me!
 
            Take a moment. Look at yourself. Look into your eyes. Do you recognize that person? Is that who you were meant to be? Are you reflecting who you TRULY are inside? Or has comparison pulled you far away because you’re not living up to who everyone else is... even though you were never meant to do so?
 
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others”
 
~Ally