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7th March, 2010
Q: I dread people who blow their own trumpet; as if they are afraid we don’t know how capable they are.
Although there may be circumstances where a certain amount of self promotion is necessary, those who constantly brag to remind us of their greatness are nothing more than no brainers.
These are also exactly the same kind of people who can’t leave us lesser mortals alone. They are intimidating, arrogant and egotistic.
I think them such fools. Really smart people don’t need to advertise.
GTT
A: The inclination to promote ourselves or blowing our own trumpet, I’m afraid, is in one of man’s domineering nature.
No doubt, self promotion or bragging is among man’s many unbecoming behaviour.
The truth is that nine out of ten cases of self praise would not garner a positive impact. On the contrary it creates negative result.
We praise ourselves for the simple reason that we wish to stand out above the rest, another words, to give a false picture in front of other people.
But to what extent self praise can help us achieve that?
We can say that self praise does not help us attend our goal at all, whatever it is.
The melon seller would praise his own wares. And when the melon was cut opened, whether sweet or not, we would know ourselves.
If the melon wasn’t as sweet as promoted, nobody would believe after the first or the most second try. Even if it can be really sweet, nobody would take it in thereafter.
If you remember, the same principle applies in the ‘The wolf is coming’ story.
The chance of hurting your enemy through blowing your own trumpet is next to nil. But for the person who praises himself often, the damage he is doing to himself can be unexpected and sometimes deadly.
And so, if we possess reasonable intelligence, we don’t need to praise ourselves. Another words people who are really smart don’t blow their own trumpet.
If a person, organization or whatever always praises himself/itself, then his intelligence is questionable. His apparent cleverness is also limited.
To use the frequency a person should brag as a yardstick to measure his intelligence is always very effective. There’s a lot of truth in ‘Empty vessel makes the most sound’.
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