While flying home from a busy day of school once, I heard myself humming a Miranda Lambert song called "Mama's Broken Heart."
It's about a woman who just broke up with her man, and can't contain her loneliness. Her mother calls her to remind her of their wonderful reputation, one that she must not ruin with her crazy antics. "Don't matter how you feel, it only matters how you look," said the song.
That's when a realization struck me.
A person doing good things will keep a shiny, spotless reputation. All their good deeds will be highlighted, and everyone will like them. They're compared to a brand new sheet of paper. Unmarked and pure.
But all it takes is one mistake to ruin that. One dot. One crumple. One stain.
A person who has kept a great image all his life can lose everything he's taken so long to build up, with just one mistake.
Put a dot on a white piece of paper, and everybody will look at it instead of noticing what little effect it had on the paper. Everybody notices the scar, not the skin.
Our eyes always look for something to get disappointed about.
I think it's impossible to keep a spotless reputation, at least not forever. So why bother? Nobody can ever please everybody.
Even if someone could die with a crystal clear image in the minds of the public, he'll eventually be forgotten. Everybody's busy looking for everybody's flaws.
So stop trying, dear readers. You were not born to be a blank sheet of paper anyway. You were meant to be marked by the people around you, and you'll be doing the same amount of marking.
