How many times a day do you look in the mirror to check your hair, makeup or clothes? While this seems like a random question to bring up, lately I have been thinking about how I always catch myself staring at my reflection to the point where I didn’t even know what I was looking for.
It seems that whether we realize it or not, a lot of us girls are drawn to our reflections and focus heavily on our appearances. And there is nothing wrong with this at all; I admit that I do this all the time and way too much!
I thought to myself, what if mirrors didn’t exist and we just had to go about our days without the ability to constantly check what we look like? Then I decided to challenge myself. So, I decided to go a full day without looking in the mirror (except just once after waking up in the morning and once before going to sleep at night) to see if I would feel any different.
The funny thing is, I really didn’t feel that different at all. I did this on a Saturday when I was home for the day, so I’ll admit my setting was probably a lot easier than if I had done this challenge here in a college setting. But the general idea was the same.
It was not the easiest challenge at first; at one point I was leaving my house to get lunch and I was annoyed that I couldn’t check my hair or makeup, as I usually do this before going most places.
But when I was out, no one seemed to looked at me any differently than if I had applied more makeup or fixed my hair.
While I’ll admit that in the beginning I was itching to look into any mirror I could find, once the day was about halfway through, this feeling eventually went away. This was actually pretty nice, as I did feel like a had a bit more time throughout the day, and I spent more time really looking at the rest of my surroundings and thinking less about how I looked. I was glad I gave this a try.
No, I will not be doing this every day from now on and yes I will probably continue to check my reflection most times before walking to my classes or attending meetings or going out with friends. But I did enjoy pushing myself to try this change in lifestyle and I encourage anyone else who is into fashion or makeup or just happens to look in the mirror more than a few times a day to try the challenge; I think you will be pleasantly surprised with how you feel afterwards. Even make it a competition with your friends to see who can last the longest!
So what is the message or advice I am trying to give here? Well, there really is no big moral of this story because I realized it’s just not that big of deal. This isn’t an article about how women need to be more confident in our appearances or how we should focus more on inner beauty or anything like that. The key takeaway from this brief experiment is just that we don’t need to spend so much time stressing about our reflections, because chances are, the only person who notices that slightly smeared eyeliner or loose string of hair is that person staring in the mirror… you!