Vanity: The Devil's Favourite Sin

Al Pacino became quite famous for his role as the Devil in the flick The Devil’s Advocate. His one liner-vanity, my favourite sin is still pretty much famous among his fans and all those who admire his works. Indeed it is true that half of the world lives on a meal whose chief ingredient still continues to be pride. Everyone at one point of time has a sense of egoism in him. This attitude not only harms him but also his relationship with his peers and others who know him hereby leading him to a feeling of insecurity. Being a student myself i have experienced this phenomenon hundreds of times. Its common at this age when you see your peers or in most cases yourself boasting about how you managed to crack 100% in a maths paper or how you won that gold medal in the debate competition.

It’s true that everyone has a level of egoism in them. Especially at this stage when there is so much competition among student; as well as pressure from parents children are bound to boast of their success. To some extent it relieves a child of some stress which he developed t his house where his parents are continuously scolding him for missing out the 1st rank in his class. Students for whom egoism becomes a permanent trait are generally loathed by the society. His peers start to think of him as selfish and one who is solely bothered with his own success and can be selfish to that extent that he may not even help his friends. To cite an example one of my friends of my school days was highly talented and was top of the class every time. But his nature of looking down upon everyone and proclaiming every other second none in the class could be beat him turned out to be so poisonous that he turned into a social outcast. Every day you could see him sitting at one corner having his lunch with no one bothered a bit.

What students need to realize that they may be talented but when they talk of their feats in front of others those who are not the top brass of the class they are taken in the wrong sense. But why limit ourselves to only students. Even parents nowadays are no less. You can clearly see a mother talking how her son or daughter stood first in some odd competition and was congratulated by the principal. Nowadays parents are more hurt by their child’s failure more than the child itself. They believe that their child’s academic performance is their status symbol in the society. What parents fail to understand is that by forcing upon the child to perform beyond his capacity they are indirectly distancing themselves from their children.

Egoism is one of the worst traits a person can have. If it comes out of its dormant stage then it turns out to extremely dangerous for the host. There is nothing better than being modest and certainly becoming egoistic is bound to lead you into deep waters.

After all Pride Hath A Fall.....