Bragging

People who boast have an inferiority complex. They try to increase their importance by lying about their achievements or what they can do. Skiting, boasting, name-dropping, big-noting oneself, and having a swelled head are other names for this vice.

People who have accomplished something don't have to boast. People who are not bothered about their position in the world don't see the need to brag. People who accept their position and status in the community realize it is fruitless to try to convince others of their superiority.

What kind of people, then, find it necessary to exaggerate their importance or achievements to all and sundry? Those people who feel inferior in some way. They lack self-esteem, self-respect, and self-love.

There are two kinds of self-love that we need to clarify here. One is positive and the other negative.

The positive self-love is loving oneself as Soul, a creation of God. We can love our inner self because it is flawless and faultless. It is a Spark of God.

Those who know this as truth know that to think of themselves as better or more important in any way than anyone else is denying what they know: that every other individual is also Soul and shares the same attributes, power, and love. They are all equal in the sight of God.

Negative Self-love

Negative self-love is vanity: the belief that the person is better in some way than any other individual.

It is a strange phenomenon that vanity gives rise to the inferiority complex that causes bragging. At one level the person believes in his superiority. But at a deeper level he knows that he is inferior in some ways to other people.

This causes uncertainty and the individual is in a state of imbalance a lot of the time. In the presence of other people he tries to prove his superiority, but when he is by him/herself he is plagued by the knowings that he can't live up to the image he assumes in public.

But he can't help him/herself. He must continue his charade or suffer public humiliation. Because his world is built on lies and he has become so accustomed to lying to him/herself and others, he can't bring him/herself to tell the truth about him/herself.

Disadvantages of Bragging

People tire very quickly of hearing someone talking about their achievements to anyone who is forced to listen to them. They remove themselves from the boaster's vicinity at the first opportunity.

The braggart makes few friends because new people he meets are targets for their real or imagined exploits. As soon as the prospective friend realizes that most of what is said is hot air, they beat a hasty retreat. So the braggart has few friends.

Handling Bragging

Bragging only occurs in those people in whom vanity is a major weakness. For most of us the problem is more how to handle a braggart rather than being a braggart ourselves.

The best method is to keep your distance from him/her. If you happen to be caught with him/her, you can excuse yourself and say that you are late for an important meeting and scurry off as soon as possible.

Although one would like to bring the braggart down to earth with cutting remarks about the truth of his/her claims, this would mean we are being caught up in his/her game. We become the victims of our own vanity and anger. Therefore, we won't be doing ourselves any favours. This anger and vanity will come back to cause us trouble some time in the future.

John Bright