“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 (1775 – 1817) English novelist and social commentator
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DIETRICH AND DI MAGGIO –
“For thousands of years we have been demanding more than our share of security, prestige, and romance.” “Never was there enough of what we thought we wanted. In all these strivings, so many of them well-intentioned, our crippling handicap had been our lack of humility … .” (12 & 12, p. 71)
MAKING CHOICES WE CAN BE PROUD OF –
“We want to be proud of ourselves and feel at peace with our behavior, yet we are increasingly embarrassed at what we find ourselves saying and doing. These actions, attitudes and habits do not reflect the person we are striving to become.” (How Al Anon Works,p. 55 on pride)
Shikisokuzeku – Beautiful Zen Pride & Vanity Meditation (6:47)
When have you found that your own vanity and fear of what others might think were the driving factors behind your motivations, lately?
A Poem for Pulse
BY JAMESON FITZPATRICK
Last night, I went to a gay bar
with a man I love a little.
After dinner, we had a drink.
We sat in the far-back of the big backyard
and he asked, What will we do when this place closes?
I don’t think it’s going anywhere any time soon, I said,
though the crowd was slow for a Saturday,
and he said—Yes, but one day. Where will we go?
He walked me the half-block home
and kissed me goodnight on my stoop—
properly: not too quick, close enough
our stomachs pressed together
in a second sort of kiss.
I live next to a bar that’s not a gay bar
—we just call those bars, I guess—
and because it is popular
and because I live on a busy street,
there are always people who aren’t queer people
on the sidewalk on weekend nights.
Just people, I guess.
They were there last night.
As I kissed this man I was aware of them watching
and of myself wondering whether or not they were just.
But I didn’t let myself feel scared, I kissed him
exactly as I wanted to, as I would have without an audience,
because I decided many years ago to refuse this fear—
an act of resistance. I left
the idea of hate out on the stoop and went inside,
to sleep, early and drunk and happy.
While I slept, a man went to a gay club
with two guns and killed forty-nine people.
Today in an interview, his father said he had been disturbed
recently by the sight of two men kissing.
What a strange power to be cursed with:
for the proof of men’s desire to move men to violence.
What’s a single kiss? I’ve had kisses
no one has ever known about, so many
kisses without consequence—
but there is a place you can’t outrun,
whoever you are.
There will be a time when.
It might be a bullet, suddenly.
The sound of it. Many.
One man, two guns, fifty dead—
Two men kissing. Last night
I can’t get away from, imagining it, them,
the people there to dance and laugh and drink,
who didn’t believe they’d die, who couldn’t have.
How else can you have a good time?
How else can you live?
There must have been two men kissing
for the first time last night, and for the last,
and two women, too, and two people who were neither.
Brown people, which cannot be a coincidence in this country
which is a racist country, which is gun country.
Today I’m thinking of the Bernie Boston photograph
Flower Power, of the Vietnam protestor placing carnations
in the rifles of the National Guard,
and wishing for a gesture as queer and simple.
The protester in the photo was gay, you know,
he went by Hibiscus and died of AIDS,
which I am also thinking about today because
(the government’s response to) AIDS was a hate crime.
Now we have a president who names us,
the big and imperfectly lettered us, and here we are
getting kissed on stoops, getting married some of us,
some of us getting killed.
We must love one another whether or not we die.
Love can’t block a bullet
but neither can it be shot down,
and love is, for the most part, what makes us—
in Orlando and in Brooklyn and in Kabul.
We will be everywhere, always;
there’s nowhere else for us, or you, to go.
Anywhere you run in this world, love will be there to greet you.
Around any corner, there might be two men. Kissing.
I heard an amazing speaker last night share a quote that integrity is what we do when no one is watching. To me the idea of integrity is directly tied to the concept of pride. I’ve recently reached a point in my recovery where just staying clean is no longer enough, I must take pride in my actions and exemplify the lengths one can stretch their life to in sobriety.
The hurrier I go, the behinder I get. When I look back on my words from last year, I am reminded that for whatever reason, I do not seem to be as close to my Higher Power as I once was. I see now I have become careless and think I am steering this ship along; no time to stop, think, get centered and take the hand my Higher Power is offering. I cannot do this alone. To think that I can is false pride. In my lifetime of living with false pride, I have found it never ends well. Today I am taking the hand of my Higher Power and moving forward.
p.s. When I’m closer to my Higher Power, I find it easier and easier to forgive myself. When I know better, I do better. I am as I was created: good and bad character traits. New lessons all the time. I pray for wisdom to “know the difference.”
Easy,
It makes a lot of sense. I suffer from extreme vanity because my pride quotient is so low. When I cannot esteem myself, I look outside myself for validation and the good feelings I want and need. And, as you know, it always goes back to Steps 1, 2, 3. Back to the waltz: Steps 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. I am finding I need to become closer and closer to my Higher Power. It’s like I need to stay tethered to my Higher Power. Don’t leave home without Him/Her.
Vanity, insecurity. Trying to look good rather than be good, whats my motivation, am i trying to impress someone cute, or trying to be of service, to everyone..does that make sense?