I overheard a conversation the other day.  One of the parties was holding forth about this, that and the other.  I periodically dialled into what was being said as it was impossible to completely blank it out, and whenever I did the same person was still loudly declaiming, offering advice, wisdom and input to all and sundry.  Everyone seemed just the frame to their picture,

A week later I was in the same coffee shop and caught up with the next chapter in this story.  This same person seemed to be feeling upset with a couple of their companions and could not understand what they had done to deserve this ‘treatment’.  From my table it was clear that the one-way nature of the ‘conversation’ was the root cause.  There had been no ebb and flow, it was more like watching someone playing tennis with one of those machines that shoots out balls at you rather than playing with a partner.

It is the hardest thing in the world to look in the mirror and see the cause of our own unhappiness.  I suppose in one way and another we are all the author of our own tragedies.  It takes a brave person who can see this even as a possibility.  However, if there is a pattern that seems to be following you around then the chances are that the common piece is likely to be the cause….

“Look in a mirror and one thing’s sure; what we see is not who we are.”  Richard Bach

“If somebody thinks they’re a hedgehog, presumably you just give ’em a mirror and a few pictures of hedgehogs and tell them to sort it out for themselves.”  Douglas Adams