2nd PE Assignment: Lydia Ra

“Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.” Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

When I was young, I used to be afraid of everything. The crashing of waves. The darkness of night. The danger of slides. The unfamiliarity of preschool teachers. They were all intimidating, and I had to cling to my mother and sister not to lose myself in the surrounding fears.

But years later, looking back on what a coward I was, I decided it was time to fix myself. Being a tearful, whiny scaredy-cat didn’t look good. It didn’t look good to other people.

And that was when I began the construction on myself. I tried so hard to build up my pride, higher and higher—but it was a shaky, heartless wall, fragile like a pile of seashells. I enjoyed convincing people that I was a brave, indifferent girl who laughed when she failed auditions and shook off bitter words like dust off a broom.

But like the remains of time still clinging to the bristles, I didn’t feel happy, like I expected myself to be. I felt empty, instead—empty and affected, an apple without its core. As I began writing poems, reaching into myself, and shutting out the noisy world, I was more disappointed in myself than I had ever been before. I thought I was a proud, happy girl, but what I’d been building up was vanity, not pride – it was a habit of pleasing myself with other’s comments, and finding joy in what other people thought I was. And then I realized how unwise I had been.

Now, I am trying not to lean on other’s opinions. I cannot always depend on people for the perfect image of myself – nor can I try to shape something I am not. I scream at the sight of mosquitoes and sigh when I fail a competition. I try to live the way I write poems, free and natural and sincere – just the way the real Lydia is. I do not have to crush my fears and emotions down, for I know now that hiding them from others does not get rid of them. I hope that I can find more of my original self through learning English, and build up what Jane Austen said is real pride without being vain—unbound by what others think, and contented in myself.