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 from...guess which novel!

Pride and Prejudice

It's something I struggle with - being proud of a piece of work, but thinking it is vain to think so and not an appealing way of being. In fact, on occasions if I have openly said 'I'm proud of this,' I have had comments from Peter such as 'Blow your own trumpet, why don't you?' It's the British in us...self-effacing to the point of inauthenticity.

However, I completed a challenging briefing paper recently - which, if you must know, was entitled "Relational and physical security: generating a culture of hope and recovery in secure settings." I am proud of it. And for once, I didn't need anyone else to say anything to know it was a good piece of work.

It was the icing on the cake when people were complimentary though!

But I didn't NEED that, where in the past I wouldn't believe anything was any good until someone else had said so.

Perhaps I'm growing up?

Finally...