Reality would be my guess. Looking in a mirror gives you a look a yourself and what you've become, making it the reality.
The last one, because you are giving a description of what you learned to wrap up your writing
Umm i cant help if u dont have the whole sentence
If you were to compare these two with something then it would be something like Evil vs Good. In any case, the first needs to be considered very bad while the second part needs to be considered something very good.
