I've been re reading The Valkyries by Paulo Coelho. I visited his blog today and he asked for submissions about the up side of Vanity. It got me thinking. This is the comment that I left on his blog:
30 years ago, while in high school, my vanity gave me an inflated sense of my worth. I had mistaken my self to be more important, greater than my friendship with a gentle, shy girl who had befriended me on my first day.
I publicly betrayed her and hurt her with unkind words. And I felt smaller, not larger as I had expected. I shrank before the eyes of my classmates, and my soul shriveled like an over-dried fig.
In that moment, I found something I had missed, that became my greatest friendship: Empathy. Without Vanity, I might have never found Empathy.
30 years ago, while in high school, my vanity gave me an inflated sense of my worth. I had mistaken my self to be more important, greater than my friendship with a gentle, shy girl who had befriended me on my first day.
I publicly betrayed her and hurt her with unkind words. And I felt smaller, not larger as I had expected. I shrank before the eyes of my classmates, and my soul shriveled like an over-dried fig.
In that moment, I found something I had missed, that became my greatest friendship: Empathy. Without Vanity, I might have never found Empathy.