The Mirage

As I looked down the long, tarred stretch of highway, the glimmering pools of water that lay before me on the road were undeniable. This was Death Valley, one of the least likely places on the planet to offer multiple pools of water. The puddles glistened and danced before my eyes, almost daring me to question their existence. I could have easily been a believer in their authenticity, but I knew that these aqua apparitions were only mirages. Mirages are incredibly tricky things. Our eyes tell us their existence is real, our thirst fuels our belief in them and our hope rapidly embraces them. How many dying desert travelers bless the oasis mirage, only to curse it once they realize it is a lie? We don’t have to be lost in the desert to experience mirages. In fact, they pop up all around us. One of them is the mirage of perfectionism. We each tend to subscribe to a mental image of what the ideal body, house, car, job, social circle and bank account should look like. Sometimes these dreams and goals become mirages to us because we feel we must drink of them or our lives are not satisfied. However, even after we achieve a certain ideal, we find that we still feel empty, unworthy and driven to continue the maddening search for what will satisfy our dehydrated sense of self. Every human is vulnerable to the seductive beckoning of what lies around the bend, but mirage chasing is an exhausting sport. I was entertained by the appearing and disappearing acts of the mirages of water on the road through Death Valley, but when I became thirsty I did not get out of the car and run toward a mirage. Instead I reached for my ordinary plastic water bottle and drank long and deep. May we be wise enough not to lose our lives in the clutch of a sparkling mirage when the life-giving water we crave sits humbly by our side.

Photo credit: http://ckphu.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/water-bottle-pouring.jpg