Welcome one and all to the Foley Funhouse!
I’d like to tell you a story about a mirror.
Two men were each given a mirror and told that it would change their lives. They took it home and decided what to do with it.
The first man put the mirror on his living room wall so that every day he’d be forced to look into it. It didn’t matter if he didn’t like what was staring back, he made sure that every single day he looked into that mirror. He believed in change. He knew that the mirror would tell him something about himself that he didn’t otherwise know.
The second man discarded the mirror into a closet, believing himself mightier than it. He didn’t care what the mirror could tell him and decided that there’s nothing or no-one who can change his life except himself. The mirror was completely wasted on this man. He decided that if the mirror was going to be successful in changing his life, then it would have to do so from the confines of distance.
The first man saw himself in the mirror and realized that something must change. His appearance looked dishevelled and disheartening. He was carrying the wounds of war across a landscape of brutality that he once called a face.
What he saw looking back was an abject failure, consumed by rage and violence.
And the mirror never lies.
But alas, now he had seen it, he could change it.
The second man never once looked in that mirror. He was too busy blaming everyone else for his faults and problems. There’s nothing he was doing wrong; it was always the other guy.
And so, he changed nothing.
This red light has been a mirror to us both, Damien. We’ve had the opportunity to stare into it on multiple occasions and learn something about ourselves. We’ve had the opportunity to change our lives for the better. This red light, of violence and pain, has given us a chance to look back at ourselves through its prism and see whether we like what looks back.
I don’t like what looks back. I looked long and hard into that red light whilst I was fired and the reflection staring back at me wasn’t what I thought it would be.
It showed a pained old man with scars, wounds and a depth of sadness that it’s taken me weeks to comprehend.
But you haven’t looked into that mirror, have you?
No, you’ve been too busy trying to blame everyone else for the mirrors existence. You’ve missed the opportunity to see yourself for what you are through the prism of the red light. You just hidden it away in a cupboard somewhere.
At Ring of Dreams, we’re going to end this, you and I.
There’s a reason we’ve been given this mirror and whilst you choose to ignore it, I’m choosing to make something of it.
I’m going to let it change my life.
And that’s my Final Thought.