The Image in the Mirror

One morning in my study I looked up the dictionary definition of the word "idol". I read:

Idol: L. Idolum, an image, form, specter, apparition; Gr. Eidolon, an image, a phantom;
1. An image of a god
2. Any object of ardent or excessive devotion
3a. An image or effigy
3b. (Obs) Anything that has no substance but can be seen, as a shadow or image in a mirror

Shortly after I read Alma 5:7:
"...he awakened them out of a deep sleep, and they awoke unto God."

Juxtaposed with:
"Anything that has no substance but can be seen, as a shadow or image in a mirror" or dream.

Now the hard question:
How much of what we pursue is an idol -- an image in a mirror or dream?

At one point in my life I wanted to be a partner in a big accounting firm. Even that goal was really just an image in a mirror or a dream. The problem (and we all do it) is that we strive for goals/ends that are measured by outward appearances (like the image in the mirror). In actuality, these situations cannot exist independently of our lives and the context of who we are, of our families, of all our other commitments and decisions. We are just chasing an image in the mirror. We can never be that image, because the image does not exist. The image is like the most complex character in all of literature, who still remains far less complex than the simplest of all human beings. The image is not real.

How much of what we pursue, how much of what we desire, is just an image in the mirror?