Mirror Mirror

I’m enjoying my finest cup of tea. A Gyokuro. My pinky rises as the cup touches my lips.

You look at me from across the room and mentally scoff. God, what a bitch. She thinks she’s better than everyone.

I look up from my cup. We lock eyes. The cup lowers and my smirk rises.

Now, you’re sure.

We’ve been taught to read it that way. Pinky up: pretentious. Nose up: superior. A smirk: condescending. A few silent movements and suddenly you know an entire person.

Why choose that definition?

A pinky is a finger. A smirk is a smile. We’re the ones making stories out of them.

We do this with almost everything. A large bank account means successful. A certain face means beautiful. A certain job means important. We learn these meanings and repeat them so often that we eventually forget we’re the ones assigning them.

We use them to define ourselves too.

What do you see when you look in the mirror?

Do you let yourself see yourself as the fairest, exactly as you are? Or are you like the Queen in Snow White, who needed the mirror to tell her that she was? She needed a reflection to know what was true about her. She let something outside of herself define her.

How she was defining fair is beyond me, given the cruelty that brewed within her. Drinking from a witch’s cauldron. No wonder the mirror said what it said.

Her problem was not that she thought highly of herself. High self-regard is a necessary condition for doing great things with your life. It’s that she needed the mirror to confirm it. If her sense of self had been her own, she wouldn’t have cared what the mirror said. Snow White could have been the fairest too. A different type of fairest.

One’s beauty doesn’t take away from another’s beauty.

Vanity was never her issue either. What a boring world without vain and beautiful people. It was her scarcity. She believed another person’s greatness had something to do with her own. It could only exist if someone stood beneath her, never beside her.

We do this too.

We define someone as more successful, so we feel less successful. We see someone as more beautiful, so we make up stories about what could be wrong with them. Someone is holding a beautiful cup of tea and suddenly ours looks plain.

Why compare what can never be compared? I am me. You are you. We will never be each other.

So your cup being full of greatness does not empty mine.

A full cup does require a pour. If I try to pour greatness into yours without your own recognition of it, it will leak. Your cup isn’t able to hold its contents. And what will be left when I’m not there to pour? What will you see in the mirror when it says that someone else is the fairest?

I continuously pour greatness into mine. I am the best. You should think you are too.

You’re only ever drinking out of your own cup, so why not fill it with the best tea?

This is different from thinking that I’m better than you. That requires a measurement against something outside of you. A mirror telling you that you are the fairest. I’m talking about being the greatest version of you. You get to define what that looks like. But it requires you seeing yourself that way right now.

Recognize how important this is. It is what’s keeping you from a full cup.

If you don’t think you’re good enough to have a certain tea, you’ll never drink it. If you think you’re better than, nothing will ever be good enough for you. You’ll always be seeking. In both cases, the cup isn’t full.

So what are you filling yours with?

A cup full of greatness is held in high regard. High regard breeds certain responsibilities — in your behavior, and in how you show up in the world. Your pinky’s up. Your head is high. Your heart is open. Your smirk is wide.

If I say I’m great, I treat myself that way. I speak great things to myself. I keep my promises. I make things I’m proud of. I move in ways I think a great human being should move. My greatness is entirely self-defined.

Otherwise, what do I personally mean by great?

My greatness will look different from yours. But it’s because I can recognize this greatness in myself that I can see it clearly in you. If you held and saw yourself the way you want to experience yourself, you would never need to empty someone else’s cup to keep that feeling of fullness.

If you experience contempt, recognize you’ve removed yourself from the internal throne of being the best.

Real confidence in self makes others less threatening. If I can see greatness in myself without requiring the mirror to tell me that I’m the fairest, I can see yours without losing anything.

We’re all pouring from the same endless teapot. It’s just that our cups look different. That doesn’t mean certain cups aren’t welcome at my tea ceremony. How boring it would be if we had no differences.

We’re all sitting at the table on our own thrones, no matter what the external circumstances may be trying to tell us about where we belong.

Yes, there will always be heads of the table. I think that’s necessary. We need good leaders to keep the peace in a world of differences. People’s rights and wrongs look different to each other, so it’s unavoidable to find a common ground if we’re going to have a good tea ceremony. We need hosts.

History’s greatest leaders recognize this. You get to a point of internal greatness where you need less and less outside of yourself to know it. In fact, you recognize that too much tea with nowhere to go is a suffocation of self. There’s no need for it. So all you want to do is pour into others, from a genuine place.

The ones who sit at the end of the table understand that they have simply been given more to care for. They saw greatness in themselves and knew they could sit there — just as we all can — but it required a knowing of self first.

The ones who accept their greatness feel no need to say it out loud.

However, my tea ceremony is always a celebration. I will always be toasting to your greatness, because I toast to my own. I like to give speeches. I’m great at making people cry — strictly the good kind of tears. I see the greatness in me and outside of me, and I can’t help but be inspired. To drink more of it. To do more with it.

But we’d still have the same experience at the table if I decided on a silent tea ceremony that day. Because it is internal.

In today’s world, we get to choose who sits at the end of our tables. Our attention selects this. So let’s place crowns on people who wear them from a genuine place of service.

The true kings and queens in the world are the people who lift someone’s head when they see it lowered. They bring it to eye level. Not an inch higher. Not an inch lower.

I recognize the greatness that exists within me. In you.

Yes, different positions at the table. But the same headspace. We’re in this together.

Bad leaders confuse the internal position with the crown that sits atop their head. They need the one outside of them to prove their greatness. The mirror must say that they are the fairest, or else they will smash it. How dare it.

Losing the crown feels like losing themselves. And what would be left? Nothing. And that is terrifying. So they spend the entire ceremony planning how to remain at the head of the table, protecting the chair beneath them.

If you know who you are without the throne, you don’t mind getting off the seat. In fact, I’d imagine you’d be a bit excited about it. That couch to the left looks really nice.

The crown can be heavy or light, depending on how you see the position. Is the head that holds it wearing it, or bearing it?

The best leaders know when to yield. They can toast to others. They allow others to sit in the chair, and leave for a different part of the table with their cups still full. They understand there is nothing to win. There is only greatness to express. And they can express it no matter where they sit.

So see yourself as the greatest. Fill your cup, so that you can pour into others without checking to see if they’re doing the same. Hold yourself with care. Keep your promises. Find what greatness means to you, and move accordingly at the ceremony.

And when someone else sits down with a full cup, you won’t feel the need to spill their tea. You may even be curious, and ask what they’re drinking.

A Gyokuro?

No, I respond. My own brew.

Can’t you see my finger?

Raised for a pinky promise.

I promise to enjoy pouring and drinking from my cup wherever I am. I promise to see myself how I want to see myself, no matter what the mirror looks like.

I know there may be people at the tea ceremony who call me a bitch. They can point at me and tell me I’m not this or that. I will simply smirk. They don’t know how I measure my pour. They don’t know what I promised myself.

But my pinky is raised, darling.

So will you not join me in a toast?

To being the best.

Great + greatness = great greatness. It’s simple math.

Will you see yourself that way?