Is Vanity something bad?
I’ve finished publishing the first 12th chapters of my new book The Winner Stands Alone (I published nearly 1/10 of the book on line). The final chapter – on line – is about vamity. King Solomon starts the Ecclesiastes saying : “Vanity of vanities. All is vanity”. Somehow vanity can destroy a person but can also puch a person to become a better human being.
So nothing is absolute and I would like to hear your opinion on that. Mostly about your experiences with the good side of vanity.
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I totally agree with Limeginger and Petra, but again some words can have different meanings to different people in different circumtances. To some vanity is self belief, to some it is pure idolatry. Vanity is more of a phase in a person’s life, I would not describe a person as vain, people are too complicated to be divided in classes like these. I think vanity makes you narrow minded, it traps us in in a world which we will not share with anyone. Mostly vanity makes people happy from outside .. but the truth is it does not allow us to enjoy the beauty and uniqueness of everything around us, and i think that doesn’t matter to some people, because they never realize that there can be beauty and strength in anything and everything. Vanity offcourse can boost your self confidence sometimes and make you win things. But then life is not about winning and loosing always. Not everyone can experience vanity though, its a skill in itself, it has to be built to some extent. I’d personally stay away from it.
Good side of vanity?
couldn’t vanity also be about love?
Love for yourself.
If you love yourself you can love others.
Loving yourself and others you realise we are all the same.
Which maybe leads to a loving and humble way of acting,
which we would never consider vain.
so who is really vain?
am I making any sense?
There is the well-known fairy tale is there not, Snow White, who was once upon a time staring into a mirror with her Stepmother by her side.
She (the Step-Mother) was incredibly beautiful, of that there was no doubt, her daughter was 9 years old, emerging into the world.
She asked her: “Do you think I am beautiful?”….
“No”, her Stepmother replied, “you are plain, you will never be as beautiful as me”…
But the mirror knew the truth…. and did not speak the lies of her Stepmother, and her Stepmother inside knew the truth too, which was why she was so filled with fear.
Some people will try to make you feel lesser than them, will try to make you feel unloved in order to make themselves feel better, will try to put you in a dark place so that they do not feel so alone, will try to get you to see their ugliness in them, but the mirror does not lie.
Apphrodite’s sacred symbol the mirror made of Copper the alchemical metal of transformation.
The mirror turned away, is protection, when someone tries to poison your world, reflect it back to them.
It is their illusion, the trick is to not let their illusion become your reality, by accepting something that isn’t true to yourself.
I have known many beautiful woman and some beautiful men, many models, and they all have a natural beauty underneath the makeup, infact the most successful model I ever knew (a best friend) didn’t even wear any makeup except for on a shoot and still doesn’t.
It is inner beauty which is the true glamour to me, the shining eyes of light and love that create the spell that compels you like a moth to a flame ….
Thanks to everyone.
Savita: there are many ways how to get to self-worth. Some do it by insulting others (they simply feel good about themselves doing it), or claiming how wrong the world is etc, etc. Some try to find it in themselves. Maybe there is a reason why this person wouldn’t understand Your connection to this blog, maybe it’s not even meant to be understood. It’s possibly not for their way of thinking. But the main thing is – it’s important to You (the blog). And mainly this is all that counts: if someone critisizes what we do, we have to step back and think – why. Maybe it’s just their way of living – living while critizising.
Maybe, is it possible, that this persons secret vanity is condemning others, seeing the faults of others, presenting a ‘well-thought-over’ critizism?! Some people think that what they see is what there is. Sometimes things aren’t as simple… sometimes we don’t see all… we don’t see the whole picture, or the truth hiding behind “what seems to be”.
~*~*~*~
Does vanity have a bad or a good side? I think this all depends from our own perception of the asset we concider to be vain. And if we are true to ourselves and others.
As others have mentioned here – anything can turn into a bad side of it. But if we know what is good for us, what feeds our or someone elses soul, can it really be that bad?
L,
L.
Hmmmm
Wellll… In my opinion vanity is at its deadliest when one believes that their contentment is based on another’s misery. (Sadly most of the world believes this…” For me to eat some have to be hungry, if I’m rich then they’ll have to be poor” and so forth)
The second part of vanity that is destructive is envy. We feel as though someone might be better and must thus destroy them.
The third destructive aspect is actually a seemly innocent part:
Self loathing.
To hate the self is to become enamored with self pity and pity from others.
The good side of vanity?
I suppose what you mean to say is ‘drive’ or ‘ambition’ which is that which propels us forward. Society would crumble if people didn’t have ambition to better their world. This includes their own well being and that of their own family, which could be called ‘prideful’.
We all live with our egos and sense of self. The ego is only a tool though for one to experience their soul. It is a tool for the soul to experience a particular desire, which it cannot do in what I refer to as ‘true reality’ or that which has no desire. (The state of Nirvana, Heaven pick your own word)
How does vanity affect me personally?
I think this question would be better served to ask family , friends and relatives. Because our answers will of course be pride driven to make us look better. :P (*irony*)
Although I will say I’m a writer and artist, so it’s a given that I’m vain…
-C
Vanitas Vanitatum.Is considered sin.I see that if we talk about human beings,we dont talk about saints,so ,being humans,in our nature is to do things in an not perfect manner.I believe we must have little pride,else we are a pray to everybody.The problem is that we can easily pass the thin line where the limit lies,not being aware.
I do understand Eclessiastes, it’s quite really when you look around the world, this truth is revealed from place to place.
All that we got is but vanity and grasping for the wind. (added by Mobile using Mippin)
I think it’s what you do with it and where you go from there. Vanity, like other human weaknesses that we work through, can leave us wiser when we come out the other side.
The danger is remaining stuck, whether with vanity of other manifestations of egoism.
Hi Paulo and Everyone,
People can observe excellence and call it vanity. This is the tall poppy syndrome.
As Dylan Thomas once said; “The world is never the same once a good poem has been added to it.”
In my experience, many people who may appear vane actually lack self esteem and overcompensate by projecting “vanity” and confidence into the world. People can have, for example, an intellectual vanity and this can lead them ever onwards to strive to succeed, in the realms of academia undertaking new research always looking for the thing that might satisfy an aching sense of loss. There is never enough success and that might be their vanity. Yet somehow they have to get there, wherever there is, to see all the steps on the journey and it may be a vanity even to try. But at least they try and the world changes.
There are many ways to measure success and we each have our own yardstick. At one stage in my life, the simple act of getting onto a London bus was a major success.
Oscar Wilde said “We are all of us in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
Vanity has behind it the meaning of lack of substance to back up claims, yet in expressing the vanity this substance can be built up behind the scenes as progress is made. The show must go on. Vanity then can become real excellence.
It does have to it the sense of aspiration, which is a good thing. Isn’t it? For without aspiration we would all stay exactly where we are.
In the end because of the transitory nature of all things it is one of the many faces of a controlled folly. We just do our best and hope that it is good enough, making life up as it goes along.
If I am vane for trying, then m’Lord, I am guilty as charged…
With all my very best wishes,
Alan
sugar is good,gives sweet taste.Too much sugar can’t hold the same sweetness and can cause diabetes and other diseases.Vanity is something like diabetes.But let us not forget 1 tea spoon maybe too much for some and too less for others.Everyone has their own set of vanity meter and all have different ranges.Not all can fit inside other people’s ranges.But what if having a vanity meter for others is also a form of vanity?
Really interesting!
Savita – thank you for putting those last words “out there” … it is so, so true ;o) x
First, let me say that I have thoroughly enjoyed reading the refreshing comments made by many already. For example, Ram Anand’s post – this, I think, clearly illustrates that even those emotions we are trained to label as “bad” or “sinful” do have their proper place of expression and can even be quite beneficial to a person’s growth, spurring that person to attain their full potential. Thank you, Ram Anand, for saying it like it is – like you really see it and feel it to be – rather than just spouting off more self-righteous rubbish on the subject, more words of warning and condemnation that we’ve all heard a million times before. I really found great value in reading your post. Yours, too, Carina, and others like it.
And a word to Paul from Austria, as well: It hasn’t been so very long ago that a person whom I held to be a dear friend at the time very deeply hurt my feelings by calling this blog a place of vanity. I can’t remember the exact words he used, but basically the point he was making was that: 1) Nothing that we have to say here on this blog really matters. We are all just talking into the air or talking mostly to ourselves – talking just to hear ourselves talk – and, thus, nothing that we write or share here has any impact on the world whatsoever. 2) That we here on this blog are all vain and pretentious in believing that what we think or feel is important enough to be written down and shared, in believing that there is any truth or significance or worth in what we have to say. 3) That we are all, similarly, self-righteous, believing that we have the answers to life’s questions all figured out, believing that we are all better and more spiritually advanced than others out there in the world.
And all of this came to me in the form of an unexpected backlash, simply due to the fact that I allowed this person to peer over my shoulder once or twice when I was making an entry on this blog. As a result, the question was posed as to why I log on here every day and read and write. My answer was simply: because it gives me pleasure – because I enjoy it. So, apparently, after that, this person who had peered over my shoulder decided to visit this blog, too, and see what was being written here everyday. Within a couple of weeks, I received this email that was nothing less than an all out attack, aimed both at me personally as well as at this blog, Paulo Coelho, and all the people who post here, citing vanity as the primary crime of which we are all so guilty.
I was so distraught and hurt by this unexpected, and I think unfounded, attack that I did not even respond to the person’s email for a full week – it took me that long to even absorb and digest what had been said. Then, when I did respond, it was only to say that I thought it best our friendship of fifteen years end right there. Perhaps that seems like a rather harsh step to take – to lose a friend of fifteen years over a blog. But it was really more than that: I just thought, if this person cannot accept and understand the me who writes here on this blog, then they don’t really know or understand me at all.
And I probably do come off as “vain” and “self-righteous” and all these other things when I write, but I also have to admit that a good portion of my self-worth, at this point in my life, comes from the fact that I have the option to put my thoughts and feelings and beliefs into words and post them here in this forum. I read the things that people write here and, as a consequence, I have developed a great deal of respect for the people who take part in this forum, as well as for Paulo himself. Just to be able to take part in this blog on a regular basis does indeed boost my self-esteem: it makes me feel like my thoughts and feelings and opinions do matter and that they are important. I won’t go into great detail as to why – it has to do with having moved back to Texas and living in the stifling social environment in which I now reside – but over the past three years I have struggled enormously to maintain my own sense of self-worth, as well as my identity as an aspiring writer. This blog and the people who are a part of it have helped me in so many ways to do this. So, maybe, as my former friend suggested, this blog is just a mirror that I hold up to myself each morning and peer into in order to perceive and admire my own “brilliance.” But, without this mirror that helps me to uphold and even boost my sense of self-worth, I might not be nearly as well prepared to contribute anything of worth to the “real world” out there. (I need to feel good about myself in order to feel that my contributions to the world matter and are worth making at all.) Without this blog and the people who make it possible, perhaps I would be now in the same state of utter depression that I was in a year ago. Perhaps I would still be on prescription medication for bi-polar disorder and/or seeing a therapist, and making no headway at all, no advancement whatsoever toward finding a firm sense of who I am and what truly matters to me in this world.
Thank you all just for being here!
Sincerely,
Savita
So, in conclusion, I think that when we see someone gazing into a mirror we should not be too quick to judge or condemn – what looks like “vanity” from where we stand may just be a simple act of self-preservation, an instance of a person gaining the strength and courage and self-worth they need to go out and make a contribution to the world around them.
I wouldn’t say blogs are always about vanity (Austrian Paul)… it can be about sharing ideas, information… even a small joke…
;o)
[another news article]
Real life Rapunzels…
http://gmy.news.yahoo.com/v/12402675
but actually that isn’t too bad..
what i never could get to grips with, was…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7889890.stm
as the women with the world record for the longest fingernails has them broken in a car crash.
‘ouch’ 4 vanity.
Somehow, when we dress better, we get more realized in somewhere, and some people that we wouldn’t talk whether we were dressed bad, we can in order do it.
Like a friend of mine use to say: “the product needs to be on standard, not us”
So,vanity it is not necessary, nevertheless sometimes it can be the deadline.
i am a big fan of paulo coelho. i even dont know wether its a official blog of paulo or not. but i really want to say that his book ALCHEMIST & VALKYRIES has changed my life. Because what paulo has said in this book i have experienced it in a very much true way. i have presented my ideas in my blog
http://www.guptapranay.blogspot.com
please see it.
vanity is a feeling, and as all feelings, is a “wild horse”.
you can try to ride it; sometimes you fall, sometimes, the horse leads you where it wants, but, with practise, you’ll be a ble to ride respecting the horse.
This is our aim in this life.
have a nice day.
balance…..nothing is bad!
Hi Paulo! Atma Namaste!
Vanity is good. God is beauty, God is intelligence, God is progress, evolution, so I think that God is vanity too.
He is always trying to make something or someone better, in all the ways that we already know. Well, this is my personal opinion about vanity. I need vanity day by day, it can also help me to make myself a better person, a better human being, in many aspects.
Beijos-kisses in your heart!
Marta
We must all first love ourselves before we can love another. Everyone has something beautiful about them and if they know what that is and it makes them happy then that is something positive and wonderful. On the other hand, I try not to look in a mirror very long. If I do, and I like what I see then sometimes I feel like I am being selfish. I am selfish in that I am only thinking about me and the way I look and for a moment I lose myself. Where do we go when we look in a mirror? What we see is not what everyone else sees. If we went our entire lives without looking in a mirror, who would we be? Who do we see ourselves as when we do not look at our outside appearance but look inside instead? When you picture yourself who do you see or what do you look like? I think that is the special part about each of us that we lose when we look in a mirror. We can’t ever forget what we picture ourselves to be. Not just a reflection but a.. I dont even know what to call it.. a being, an aura, a light.. I guess it is whatever it is to each of us individually :)
The most unusual thing i’ve read about vanity are John Berger’s words in his book ‘Ways of Seeing’ :
“The mirror was often used as a symbol of the vanity of woman. The moralizing, however, was mostly hypocritical”
(There is on the page an image of the painting ‘Vanity’ by Memling 1435-1494).
“You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, you put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting VANITY, thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for your own pleasure”
king Salomon was rite, but when we think life- and we all know how fragil is our life on this planet- we find out that in vanity there is some fun, something special.
if we know our limits, and we dont use vanity only to live in a shaw of life- so y not enjoying nice material life,,,,
men like nice cars (some times) women like jewleries, nice cloth good perfum,,, y not
these material give one this different satisfaction,,, and even its all just vanity, its still gives one the special feeling,,,
i enjoy vanity,, and i dont think there is nothing wrong in vanity!!
I bought a Fossil watch over Christmas while I was in Munich. I spent a little extra than I should have; but it was a steal at €119. I chose a particular type of watch to represent my ‘self,’ as the usual symbol for my trade is a swinging pocket watch. If you look closely at the watch there are three areas where you can see the inner workings. The second hand has a circle of its own; above it you can see an inner self-winding trinket. On the main face there is the usual hour and minuet hands, within that large face are also a 24 hour clock and a date keeper. The watch is stainless steel silver, the main face is black surrounded by, again, silver – which is in the shape of a crescent moon.
Why am I telling you this!? Every day when I went to work I could not wear my watch, which I love to wear, because I was in a clean room. When I came home, I would see my watch by the bed side and put it on and say to myself, I wish I could wear my watch every minuet of every day. Last Friday I lost my job and now I can wear my watch proudly.
On my blog we are following the first enemy >>
I like to dress like an gentleman, but can also wear jeans… my soul tells me to have style thats me, Libra and borned Virgo… I love style fashon, but not the price. Design is aethetics view of life. We are boss of our lives, we do what we feel, and not what we are told.
i want to wear a pair of black leather pants, thats my vanity, the positive side to this, it made me get healthy, lose ridiculous amounts of weight as it was causing me so many health problems. beauty is within but i want to wear black leather pants and look hot in them. Its as simple as that.
Nothing is bad, until it harms.
Paul…..
LOL :D hahaha… you are absolutely Right!
Thanks for the laugh too!
xxoo
Vanity = Longing to be a part of all the beauty in the world ??
Just a spontaneous thought. I find it hard to think about vanity in a positive way, since it can be so harmful. It is easy to lose yourself in it.
Love,
Petra
‘Vanity of vanities. All is vanity!’
My father used to say that to me, whenever I wanted a … dress or something expensive. He wanted to teach me not to give so much importance into appearances and look more into the persons! I think that he has succeeded and I do not judge a person from his .. appearance.
Being a … Libra I think I am vain. I like beautiful things, jewels and artistic articles. I know that these are things of this World, the temporary material World. I also believe that harmony and beauty belong to the World of Ideas. So there is nothing wrong in trying to see and have beauty in our lives. The life of the Rose and of the Butterfly is so short but we love them, appreciate and need them in our lives. To beautify our ..dull lives and bring beauty and …vanity in our World.
It is a nice feeling to be … admired which is the … beginning for …love! ;] The Trojan war was made for the eyes of beautiful Helen, but the reason was that Paris had chosen Aphrodite as the most beautiful Goddess who promised him the most beautiful woman on Earth. [Those Greeks and their .. Eros!]
LOVE,
Thelma
hmmm…I know we’re being asked to share “positive” attributes of vanity, but I’m having trouble finding anyhting that matches that description.
From Wikipedia: “In conventional parlance, vanity is the excessive belief in one’s own abilities or attractiveness to others.
“In many religions vanity is considered a form of self-idolatry, in which one rejects God for the sake of one’s own image, and thereby becomes divorced from the graces of God.”
The above resonates with me re: description of vanity. As such, vanity has little to do with actual, grounded, realistic self-confidence. Vanity is a *hyper-inflated* view of one’s self, abilities, and appearance. And that distinction is important.
Vanity isn’t even arrogance, which I’d even argue arrogance has its own type of grace.
Vain people are, among other things, annoying to behold. They loom large in their own legend. People in a state of vanity do not actually connect to other people, because they are self-preoccupied, smug, overly-self-conscious.
People embracing vanity have a much higher stake in retaining an exaggerated positive self-image than others who are seeking a realistic self-image. Because “vain people” often cannot bear to see or understand the negative aspects of themselves (because they are actually more fragile and insecure than modest people) they cannot accept responsibility for their own failures, and blame others or external conditions. Because to admit to failure would put their inflated sense of self-worth at risk.
Vanity relies on other people’s constant validation of their wonderfulness. Therefore, the vain person is an approval junkie. They will say or do anything (or arrange their physical appearance thus) in order to cajole/seduce people into validating their falsely positive sense of self.
And on the other side, vain people are so vulnerable to being manipulated by others who flatter their vanity. Or who put their vanity at risk. Vain people are easily swayed by fear-based and ambition-based advertising and marketing. Advertisers know this and prey on people’s vanity/ If you use this product you will be x,y,z. If you don’t do a,b,c you will be unattractive etc.
Modesty is so much more strong, attractive, and interesting. Modesty is warm and authentic. Modesty is inspiring. Modesty draws others to one. Vanity is cold, fearful, and repellent.
So to stay true to the intent of this posting, if I had to say two good things about vanity it would be: (1) vanity can come in handy in extreme negative circumstances, like if someone were a prisoner of war. Vanity might be one of the coping mechanisms that would allow someone to survive—believing that they are so super-human and strong and resilient and important that they could not possibly be broken, and that they have what it takes to survive; (2) vanity can motivate people to exercise and eat healthily.
As an experience designer I would never use vanity as a lever to manipulate people’s behavior. I’d rather motivate them using something that will make them deeply happy with who they really are inside and out.
There’s nothing wrong with vanity…
but there is a point if one has too much of it, one becomes so preoccupied with oneself that they are not in the moment any more… and miss out on everything.
Just like selfishness which has a bad connotation, but there is nothing wrong with being selfish, we have to be selfish, but everything has it’s limits, balance…
In an airplane, they say if the plane fails, first put on your own oxygen mask. Would anyone argue that this act is selfish?
Dear all,
Here is a poem on “vanity”. I would see your comment here on vanity and then I will get back to you on this issue, later. (Lazy, very lazy–)
http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2009/03/09/the-everyday-masters/#comment-169192
Now, wait a moment- Please don’t go no,
Kalwar, why are you going to press submit button-
Wait, No please no- Once you press it, you will have to
wait and write again, and the comments will go for moderation
Wait no– OK, You lazy boy !
See you after the short commercial break…
Good day ! :)
God bless you all !
I love to sing – sometimes I play with my voice just to try different tones, see how high I can “fly” or how low can I go. Hehe.. Oh… I think we all have this side. Even if we don’t see it right away… I think even modest people have this side. If not out in the open, then secretly… there is always something we are proud of, of ourselves or for ourselves. And it’s not neccecarily a bad thing, really.
As Paulo said – sometimes vanity can have a good side to it. But it depends… if it’s forced on others, or beind forced too much by the person itself, it can turn to a disadvantage.
Make up – sometimes when I put it on, I start to glow. Other times I put it on to put on a mask. Another times I rather not put it on.
Oi Paulo!
Estou tentando encontrar o lado bom da vaidade, ou algo que eu tenha vivido por causa dele, mas esta´sendo bem difícil. Entendo a vaidade mais como um egocentrismo, aquela necessidade chata de que todo mundo te ame e te adule rs. Talvez o lado bom disso seja que, ninguém é tão bom quanto acha que é (ou tão ruim quanto acha que é), assim, nossa vaidade, se bem usada, pode nos levar a patamares mais elevados, já que vamos tentar ser tudo aquilo que queremos acreditar que já somos rs. Não raro, nossa auto-crítica é bem mais branda do que nossa crítica, então, poderemos passar a mão em nossa própria cabeça como quem diz “tudo bem, vc vai conseguir”, e a partir daí, caminhar em direção aos sonhos de grandiosidade interna que carregamos.
grande beijo!
I see less wrong with vanity than I do with low self-image. I think it is important to care about one’s interior as well as one’s exterior.
Exterior vanity is limited to what is visible yet vanity may lie more in what cannot be seen. It is unfair to accuse others of being vain, each person decides what to focus their energy on whether it be physical, intellectual or emotional advancements.
Vanity can be more of a virtue than a vice as long as it is not the only channel that drains our energy, notselfish or condescending.
Guilty.
I try to look after myself as I am part of someone else’s scenery.
Not obsessed by it though.
I am also really lucky to have good genes from my parents.
I also try to be the best person I can be. Am not perfect. Who is?
The most dangerous isn’t vanity,it’s jalousy.
The most poisonneous isn’t the one who is trying to be finally recognised for his talent but the one who doesn’t have any talent and will go and steal and benefit from others.
Vanity can be okay,jealousy will never be especially when you put acts on what was just thoughts.But at the end,it’s beyond hatry,it becomes pity.
too much of anything is bad and that also goes with vanity. people sometimes become obsessed with what’s outside and forgets that sometimes it’s the inside that counts.
Angeline16
“Vanity is so secure in the heart of man that everyone wants to be admired:even I who write this,and you who read this.”Blaise Pascal
Vanity…one word…thoudand faces!
:)
quando bisogna spiegare una sola parola come questa,
a me vengono i pidocchi in testa!
Very Absolute Nothing Is Try Yet!
Ahahah…it’s funny!
Vanità non è la stessa cosa che migliorare sè stessi, vanità sta nel carattere che forgia una persona vanitosa, quando si accettano consigli da queste persone vanitose…se tu non lo sei, non lo diventi…migliori semplicemente te stesso!
Io, da donna, lo faccio quando mi trucco o quando scelgo accuratamente il mio abbigliamento e gli accessori annessi!
Ma solo se sono insicura e sento il bisogno di stare bene con mè stessa: praticamente e paradossalmente io sono spesso infelice quando il mio trucco e il mio abbigliamento sono vicini alla perfezione!!
Se sto bene porto tuta e scarpe da tennis o da trekking!
Kisses Paulo
if you don’t take of yourself, then there are practical reasons to be concerned…
but then getting into that cycle of self-care has become so obsessive for some people
- so i guess it requires some balance.
I don’t know.
A double edged sword, at best.
But I write with the envy and quiet of the very plain-sincere. :)
Should I not have vanity or should I? Vanity is a representative of a person’s pride and I do not think we could do without vanity in today’s world. Isn’t it our vanity that makes us feel out of place in we are in certain places? That make us think we are better than few people out there? I think all of us need a sense of pride for our own selves here, and as Paulo has exclusively asked for us to jolt down experiences with the good side of vanity- the best example would be me.
I used to feel like I am the lowest caste of all people in earth because I did not sense anything about myself that makes me stand out from the rest. Without vanity, my confidence would have remained at an all-time low. Once I found what my talent was, I did, and still have, a certain degree of vanity that actually allowed me not to feel intimidated like I always did before while being with an exclusive group of people. The vanity allows me to look at a person with a greater position than me in a social classification with no envy or dissatisfaction, what-so-ever, the vanity is pure and simple- that even though that person may have more money, more luxury, or whatever it may be- he did not have the talent that I have. However potentially egoistic and far-fetched it may sound, it actually helps in closing the intellectual and social gap that sometimes our society leaves a gaping hole in. But I am also aware that just like how I felt I was overlooked as being insignificant before, I too- at the moment in action of trying to put my vanity in a place similar to the ‘greater man’- I am overlooking the ‘lesser man’ around me.
Nobody has come across and called me arrogant before, and in that sense, I am happy that I have kept my limits at good pace. But, I can’t help but to wonder, have I destroyed the ‘lesser man”s confidence in himself by overlooking him? How would he overcome that?
As Paulo has stated above, nothing is absolute- so I think the jury’s still out as to whether vanity is good or bad. Just like anything else in life, I believe, vanity is both essential and also uncalled for in several places. My question in return is- could we keep our vanity in check so that we do not get so full of ourselves when we shouldn’t? When, or how, do we put the brakes to this inner emotion? How do we channel it out the right way? How to we put the proper direction for this feeling? Because as much as I do not want to be underestimated through how I present myself and my self-assurance, I also would want to inspire others who need that inspiration to take pride in themselves.
Just my two cents.
Regards, Ram Anand
I don’t think there is anything wrong with being vain as long as a balance is being struck. It is OKAY to care about appearances…to want to look at beautiful things and be beautiful. BUT…when vanity starts inhibiting great experiences, when a dependency arises.this is when it turns into something else.
Other people made me aware of the way I looked, how I was perceived, I never gave much thought to beauty until I started school. There I discovered what beauty could get you and how angry it made others when they did not possess it. I hated this for a while…..it took me many years to make peace with all of it. Every so often I still have trouble with it. I’ll never fully understand the power of beauty and what it does to some people.
There is a good side to it, benevolence.
Beijos.
http://.youtube.com/watch?v+VnzCu-EZVGK&feature=related
Interesting reply.
Love
Olá Paulo, bom dia.
Bom, você tocou num ponto bastante intrigante.
Todos conhecemos o lado ruim da vaidade, com Narciso se afogando na admiração de sua própria imagem… Porém, o Lado bom?
De verdade, nunca havia pensado sobre esse ângulo, vou meditar sobre o assunto e voltarei a escrever.
Abraços grandes!
I think the desire to become better is part of our instinct, we are expansional by nature. However, if we become obsessed with a form and forget the journey, then vanity has won over us.
If the desire to appear is too strong, the state to be cannot come true.
If we have no self-respect, we cannot come true.
The pride can be the mainspring of action, if it is a pride for one, and not an effect to appear.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7B7bVD_DkM4
Rest my case …lol..Love and Light Tania
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