The mirror sees what you look like. The people who love you see what you’re like.

Mirrors give you a flat, reversed, badly lit report on one surface, read by the harshest reader you have. It knows nothing else about you. The people around you are working from a completely different set of evidence: how you are in a crisis, whether you are funny, what you do when somebody gets left out. They are reading a much bigger file, and they like what is in it.

On a day when the mirror is loud, get a second opinion from the better instrument. Spend an hour with somebody who knows you well.