John Joseph Powell Quote on Self-Worth and How Interactions Are A Mirror For What’s Within

“It is an absolute human certainty that no one can know his own beauty or perceive a sense of his own worth until it has been reflected back to him in the mirror of another loving, caring human being.”

John Joseph Powell, The Secret of Staying in Love

Beyond the Quote (214/365)

Mirrors allow us to see our external self. Human interaction allows us to see our internal self. Without mirrors, we wouldn’t be able to truly know how we looked. We can get a sense of how we look and we might be able to guess, but it is only through the reflection of a mirror that we can ever be sure. Without human interaction, how might we ever truly grasp the content of our character?

We get a sense of who we are from how people act towards us, how they treat us, and in how they respond to what we say and do. They are our base of comparison. If everybody we interact with says we’re nice—then it’ll be easy for us to believe that we’re nice. If everybody we interact with says we’re ugly—then we’ll start believing we’re ugly. We might be able to get a sense of our character based on introspection, self-exploration, and in how we see other people interacting in the world, but until we interact with others directly, it’s impossible to know for sure.

I believe that most people are well intentioned and hope to do good in the world. I also believe, however, that many people have distorted and skewed perceptions of who they are and act in accordance with how they’ve been treated, how they’ve been taught, and what they’ve learned from the interactions throughout their lives. Many people have grown up in environments where they’ve been told they are ugly, stupid, and/or otherwise worthless and have developed skewed self-perceptions because of it. It’s what makes so many people blind to their own inner beauty and self-worth and why so many people perpetuate that type of distorted perception into the world.

When you’re constantly surrounded by broken, bent, or otherwise distorted mirrors, you aren’t able to get an accurate perception of your external self. Anyone who has been to a carnival and has peered into those bent and curvy mirrors knows what I’m talking about—you don’t even recognize your own reflection. Now, imagine growing up and only having those types of mirrors around you. Imagine never seeing your true, undistorted, unbroken reflection. It would skew how you saw yourself and undoubtedly change how you acted in the world.

Now, imagine growing up and only ever being surrounded by broken, defeated, angry, vengeful, discriminatory, hurt people. Imagine only ever having interactions that were belittling, hurtful, and hate filled. How would you ever be able to get an accurate sense of your character? Your interactions are being reflected back to you from broken and distorted mirrors. It isn’t until you can finally look into a clean slated mirror that you will ever be able to finally see the content of what’s within.

This is what Powell means in the quote above. It is an absolute certainty that you can’t know your own beauty or perceive your own sense of self-worth until it has been reflected back to you in the mirror of another loving, caring human being. This is the danger in being surrounded by those who are broken, defeated, hurt, and hate-filled—they distort your perceptions. And when your perceptions are manipulated it changes how you see yourself which literally changes everything about how you interact with the world. Love is the antidote. Love is the mirror through which you will finally be able to see. Love will not only introduce you to the best in others, but it will introduce you by and by to the best in yourself.

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