I strut. And violently swing my right arm, according to my Dad. That’s a part of strutting, right? And last week, driving home from a nearby auto body shop in my now-dent-free bright red coupe, I surely felt invincible. (Boris Grishenko in “GoldenEye” prior to death by liquid nitrogen: “I am invincible!!!”) I was essentially drive strutting. My dazzling almost-toy car and I were blasting Bellatrax dance mixes really loudly…

Until I realized that this was an exact replay of the moments before my first mortifyingly slow motion accident four years ago.

I spent the rest of the drive intentionally toning myself down. Literally within minutes of leaving the shop, my mental state had reversed a generous 180 degrees. My psychological mini-revolution stayed in my head and within my car, so no exterior signs revealed me—i.e. my driving didn’t change (still a bit too fast, maybe). But my eyes started darting around suspiciously as I became hyper conscious of all potential vehicular incidents. Written down, that sounds abnormal. My life thus far, though, has made me entertainingly speculative about unexpected future events, especially when one takes something for granted.

No accidents occurred and I was genuinely grateful when I got back to the dorm. (It’s easy to forget how the best day is sometimes just the simple, disaster-free one.) I remembered what my mom half-jokingly told me a couple years ago, after borrowing my car for an errand. The gist: a) it’s fun to drive that new little car, and b) take care to stay a bit modest while inside. And, like most of the lines stored in my Mom Quote Reservoir, its truth-value has aged superbly.

To be honest, my biggest fear has always been my ego. Okay, fine, not true: At one point it was my little brother finding my diary (which ultimately resulted in a lost one that’s probably under a hotel mattress in another country). But once I learned what the enigmatic “ego” was, I did become quite afraid of mine—and for good reason: There are a lot of things I am proud of. It’s pure vanity because they’re normally things I had no hand in creating and am lucky to have seen or felt at all. Unfortunately, the awareness itself is no panacea. My contract with pride is still riddled with the small print of embarrassing and humbling experiences.

There’s a line between self-affirming confidence and self-loving pride. I don’t know its width, but it’s pretty solid. One is a bit more reckless and simple than the other. It exists for the sake of existing. It’s the relaxed pose we wear in front of certain people. It’s our secret passions we hide from our friends to keep an image. It’s that signature, seemingly nonchalant phrase we drop in conversation—the one that used to be true but now requires work to maintain. They’re mysterious or misleading, pretending that something we really take to heart is just, like, you know, whatever. “Yeah, I didn’t know anything about college until, like, sophomore year, hahaha,” I used to say. Is it totally true? I can’t remember. But, given my ethnicity and the stereotypes around it, it was a casual remark I’d throw out to represent a world of other related concepts about my past and identity. I was really proud of it, so I wrapped it in a little prepackaged phrase. This past week, I realized I have more of those repeat offender one-liners than I’d like.

It’s strange to think about the mantras we say and act out to other people. On the surface it’s all unrehearsed, easy, background. Often, however, they’re non-realities of which we’re convincing ourselves. But why is this rocky terrain? Because if we proclaim too many self-indulgent slogans, we start publicizing somebody we don’t even know. That’s a kind of insecurity I really want to avoid.

The best people I know and love lack the self-written signs hanging around their necks. Rather, they walk and talk and live without proving anything except the fact that they don’t need to. I’m taking a page out of their book, which means throwing away the one filled with pretty self-descriptions. And the self-aware strut? Definitely taking steps to remove it.

Interested in comparing recipes for humble pie? Discuss with Nina at [email protected].