The Price of Vanity

There are indeed times in our life when we truly feel like exuding ourselves and expressing ourselves to our heart’s content. There are indeed times in our lives when we do some things just for the sake of doing them. While thinking in retrospect, we often feel that we never had any valid reason to do the things that we did; however we just did them; maybe because we liked the feeling of doing them. The human ego is indeed an intricate and wonderful thing to behold. It operates on multitude levels, silently influencing our decisions and remarkably enough; changing the course of our life completely.

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Vanity is probably the single most dangerous thing that could hamper the success of any individual. Vanity is nothing but an incessant need to assert yourself; to proclaim yourself to be better than the entire world. Such an attitude however proves to be detrimental to an individual as he completely loses his sense of reality and the bearing that he has over his own life. In the end it so happens that this incessant need to glorify his own self directs each and every decision that he takes in his life.

We all have vanity and on some level we all appreciate it when our vanity is stroked. Its like this; I like it when someone praises me; even if the person in question may indeed know nothing about what I do; or may not even be qualified to either glorify me or demean me. But still in the moment of passion when we are overcome by the lust for our own ego, we quickly forget this little specification and swoon in happiness at the shallow praise. Slowly it so happens that we start to covet that praise beyond anything; so much that it starts to become a need in our life; subsequently becoming the sole reason as to why we exist.

Now I am not saying that a person should never feel the need to be praised or the need to be respected amongst his peers. However the said individual should always be aware of the undercurrents that flow beneath the shallow praise and the momentary show of respect. A wise man once said that flattery is telling the other person precisely what he thinks about himself. Simply put, our ego hardly ever ceases to think about itself. Incessantly it focuses and obsesses over the most intricate of things that make it look good. My vain human ego already has a list of things that corroborate to how virtuous, splendid and beautiful I am. Literally speaking my delusion and my elevated perception about my own self leads me to death and destruction.

Hence, the prudent thing for any individual would indeed be that he should stay away from vanity and personal adulation. Simply put, one needs to approach life sensibly and with a rounded understanding of what each facet and every single factor of life represents. That helps the human being to stay centered in his life irrespective of the praise of dispraise that he might receive. Flattery remains an integral part of any successful man’s life; there will always be those around him who try to capitalize on his vanity. But the one thing that he should never ever forget is that flattery is all right as long as you don’t inhale it. The moment you start to believe in your own hype; the moment you start to caress your own giant ego; the moment all the adulation and success starts to go to your head; that is it. You are done for the day. It takes little time for superlative success to transform into crushing defeat. Such is life; and such is the price of vanity.

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