Crushing her arrogance

Chapter 5 Crushing her arrogance

We might be going slightly away for a moment, but due to the family teachings and education, her overall attitude when facing outsiders almost always adheres to the three factors.

One was to always maintain a bit of doubt when interacting with anyone who approached her.

The second one, was to be cautious when dealing with them, putting up her guard.

And third one was to put a certain distance in her relationship with others, to avoid becoming overly familiar, thus becoming negligence.

The reason she was taught in this way was to protect herself from those who might harm her and the Family. Both the Rin family and the Selva family have a deep background and influence with a long history. Although nowadays, the Rin family still barely held on to its position and influence, the Selva family has declined a bit ever since the old gentleman in the family passed away.

Nonetheless, anyone who had known her family's name and background would have several points of awe and respect toward the family members. However, this does not mean there's no one around that would threaten and use them.

It was precisely because they knew that many of the older generation had retreated from state affair and the families' influence were declining, that gave birth to them to sprout various ulterior motives.

Once all the older generations were gone, there would no longer be anyone who could protect the family's industry from being devoured by other influences.

So, through experiences and wisdom gained from the long family history, both families, when teaching their young children, would expect them to be able to protect themselves and avoid danger.

One of the most important elements in training their youth was for the children's mindset and mentality to never look down on others when socializing and interacting with anyone.

The eternal truth to never underestimate the opposite party was deeply ingrained in them.

This is the kind of mentality that was extensively trained in their mind as they grew up.

After all, dangers could come from anyone and anywhere. These include possible danger from her family members as well as the strangers she met outside.

At the same time, they could accidentally offend someone they should never provoke if they looked down on others.

They might just be walking somewhere down the road and meet some old people sitting under the tree shade playing chess. Among this group of people, there could be some bigshot or billionaires CEOs who mingled among the common people.

These older generations who have grown old with age, mostly like to interact and socialize with those in similar generations. Compared to the younger generation, it is more comfortable to have their peers accompany them.

This group of older generations might be the bigshot themselves or their circle of friends. Or it might have been their children or grandchildren who have made big careers and some achievements somewhere.

So, if outsiders casually offended this group of old men and ladies, even for a minor reason, they might accidentally bring some trouble to themselves.

Thus, it was always a good idea to respect the elderly with courtesy. Even if in our hearts we might not be sincere or even feel contempt or disdain, one should always respect the elders. Because you never know what was the identity and background of the other party.

We might have pulled a little too far, but these were examples of life lessons taught to Seline since she was young.

And it was also because of this mentality that she managed to get to know her future husband back then. Lu Yang was traveling around with his circle of friends as backpackers. After long journeys, his clothes were already a bit shabby. Coupled with the trend of wearing tattered jeans at that time, one might mistook him as a beggar.

If Seline was a snobbish girl who looked down on others, she might disdain to even come near them.

Fortunately, she was not.

At that time, out of curiosity, she approached and talked to them. After knowing they were part of a backpackers group, she kept asking about their travels. The various tales of their adventure and journey as they traveled around fascinated her.

As she and the group contact more often, she managed to befriend Lu Yang. Throughout their relationship, until she accepted his marriage proposal, she never knew Lu Yang's background. She was purely interested and attracted to him and from there slowly strengthened their relationship until marriage.

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And because of these experiences, she never looked down on others.

On the other hand, she had always evaluated herself as someone 'clever' and intelligent. She had always thought she belonged to the 'smart guy group' among her friends and peers.

If she was not a good-looking beauty, but a shabby bespectacled girl, she might even be called a nerd. Although she never underestimates others nor disdains them, due to her intelligence capital, she could be said as a proud young girl.

All her life, because of her background and her upbringing, she has always had a sense of arrogance in her bones and heart.

This was not some cheap haughtiness nor blind conceit that comes from vanity. Nor was its mindless pride and sense of superiority that looked down on others.

But it was the arrogance that was born from confidence in her ability and this was ingrained within herself. A level of confidence and self-respect that was tempered after going through painful struggles and training over the years to achieve her current life.

Because of that, she had been quite confident in her intellectual and thinking capability. She had never thought of or regarded herself as someone stupid. Rather she had always held the belief with much conviction, that she might not be the brightest there are, but she was indeed among the best among those of her age.

Never underestimate others while not underestimating your value.

For her, the golden rule that states 'you should treat others the same way you would want to be treated yourself' was a two-way relationship.

While the literal meaning was obvious. Since she doesn't want others to look down on her, she reciprocates that feeling by forbidding herself from ever looking down on others or disrespecting others.

But the implied meaning resonates more with her.

Thanks to her achieving various results and successes after hard struggles, she received heartfelt admiration and acknowledgment from others. These acknowledgments and awes she received were how other people viewed and treated her.

Thus, she also reciprocated it by appreciating herself more. Because of this, she kept pushing herself to become a better person while helping others to do the same.

And this feeling was not because of her sense of vanity and superiority feeling that looked down upon other girls as stupid. Rather in her mind, she was purely assessing the thinking capability between herself and the others.

To put it nicely, what she thought was that the others do not have the same capability as hers to effectively and efficiently reorganize, analyze, rationalize, and make a quick judgment on any given information and situation.

So, in comparison, what she thought of others was, if one were to put it into simple words, these people's intelligence quotient was 'average'. But if she were to use her harsh standard criterion of assessment, she would simply just evaluate them as 'stupid'.

As for herself, she judged herself as 'clever'. On a scale of 1 to 10 from worse to best, she felt she was more around 6.5 to 7 points in the intelligence section.

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However, all that she saw today had crushed her arrogance and confidence. It was the first time she felt, she might have been stupid like any other girl.

The reason that made her feel that way and panicked, was that she saw something that should not be there when looking up. A very weird and illogical phenomenon.

At that moment when she saw it, it was probably for the first time in her entire life, that she felt her mind's thinking faculty was insufficient. She had to use her best ability and willpower to calm herself down.

While using all her logical thinking and intellectual capacity, going through all the knowledge and information she had known, she still could not rationalize what she had just seen.