The Anti-Brag Essay
I could sense the pattern again – Pause. Slow. Faster. Stop. Sigh. The concerning rhythm of a teenager battling his college application.
Pretending to fold laundry, I leaned against the doorframe. But really, just hovering over him – my son. As always, he was hunched over his laptop, hair unkempt… but determination radiating from him like an adorable little furnace.
He didn’t notice me. He was too busy muttering to himself. “Okay… impressive sentence. I must impress them without impressing them.”
Then, as he typed, he spoke aloud: “I am a leader.”
Pause.
“…no, I’m not… that would be a lie,” he said to himself.
Delete.
He tried again, mumbling: “I am a leader… mostly of my own dirty room.”
I slapped a hand over my mouth. Do. Not. Laugh.
He continued narrating his misery: “Oh, wait… my room is too untidy for any leadership.”
Delete.
The laugh inside me bubbled, but I forced myself to stay composed.
My son sighed dramatically — like an Egyptian hero battling an evil mummy, doomed to fight the cursed essay that had betrayed him.
“My friends are writing about curing diseases and advanced research,” he grumbled. “And I’m sitting here… talking about dust mites.”
Another deep breath. He tried again. “Today, I demonstrated initiative by making lunch.”
That sounds wonderful, I thought.
Then he added: “I poured so much ghee into the food… my dad almost fainted.”
This time, I inadvertently chuckled and struggled to cover it. He looked up, suspicious. I pretended to be very busy with laundry, refolding the same pair of socks for the fifth time.
He dropped his forehead onto the keyboard.
Oh, my poor boy. He had always been like this — honest to the point of comedy, humble to the point of absurdity, and utterly incapable of bragging even when he had every reason to.
While other kids were writing about “transforming local policy,” my son was deleting lines about nearly murdering his father with excessive ghee.
And yet… without realizing it, he was doing something rare: being unapologetically himself.
“Okay, Pranav, write something useful,” he muttered, interrupting my thoughts.
He took a long breath. This time, he didn’t narrate. He just… wrote. The room grew quiet; my curiosity grew stronger.
After a few minutes, he leaned back and whispered to himself, “Yeah. That’s… me.”
I stepped in casually. “How’s it going?”
He shrugged — his unsure, humble shoulder lift. “I can’t brag… it feels fake.”
“Show me your essay,” I said gently but firmly.
He turned the laptop toward me, revealing what he had written:
I am not changing the world with technology or innovations. But I go every weekend to teach young kids. Their parents are so happy that they thrust a $100 gift-card into my hands. And even my country’s president seems proud of me — he gave me a Presidential Service Award.
My eyes teared. This child of mine… I wished he saw how beautiful he was.
He wasn’t curing diseases, but he had already uplifted lives. He hadn’t discovered Martians, but he had completed a tough college application by himself — no pushing, no reminding, no bribing — just sheer dedication.
He closed the laptop and stretched. “Maybe I’ll write the ghee story in the next question,” he said.
I laughed out loud.
He raised an eyebrow. “You think I don’t know? You were folding the same socks over and over again.”
It was now my turn to shrug. And then we both laughed — the kind of laugh, and the type of moment, that fills a mother’s heart.
