Erised.

Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi.

I show not your face but your heart's desire.

This has to be one of the most powerful sections in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. This mirror, the Mirror of Erised, is the Mirror of Desire. It reflects the viewer's deepest desires, laying them out and playing their secret dreams on its glassy surface. This mirror sees more clearly than any human. It sees the heart and the heart's deepest desires alone.

Honestly, the rest of the world would do well to follow the initial actions of the mirror--to look not at a person's exterior, but at the inner chambers of their heart. Who are they, what do they value, what makes them them?

However, the mirror also creates a hold on the viewer so strong as to pull them from reality and into the dream-world of the fantasies of paradise and happiness that it creates. Here lies the danger--if you see a place where you could be utterly happy, wouldn't it be so much easier to simply stay there?

Reality is painful. Yet the only grim advantage that it has over the perfection of fantasy is that it is always, always undeniably present.