Polar Bear Blues

I recently saw a reel on Facebook where a lone, smaller polar bear walks up from grassy lands onto a highway. All traffic had stopped to let it pass.  It seemed forlorn and a little out of place as I expect to see polar bears only on snow. The bear wanders in front of the car of the person who is videoing it and pauses at the backend of the next car. It took me a few seconds to realize that the bear was looking at its reflection in the car’s chrome bumper. The video managed to capture it all. The bear kept looking and nosing and pawing at the reflection to no avail. Eventually, it gave up, turned toward the car with the video going and after looking at their chrome for a minute, finally crossed the street and wandered off to the side.  I kept thinking how sad. He/she is all alone, looking for a mate, a friend.

Of course, this got me thinking deeper and made me wonder, do we go looking for people in the reflection of ourselves? Do we prod to see if we can make them into our own image? And when they fail the test, do we move on? Because none of us are the same, so there is no reflection mold to be made, and all will fail that test. Or do we look for people who are who they are? People with their own brand of “me”? Will we stick around to find out the joys and quirks, the ups and downs of them? People are like rainbows, always reflecting the beauty of themselves – not others. Don’t pass up the opportunity to get to know a new person, no matter how different they seem to you. Open hearts can more easily accept each other just as we are. Flawed, but beautiful.