Confidence

Confidence is such a blessing. Whether one has to work to attain it or it has just developed naturally, confidence does more for a person than most personality attributes because it makes things easier. You don't second guess every step you take. You believe that you'll handle what comes your way. It's the oil in life's engine.

From what I've seen, confidence works primarily in two ways, how it affects an individual from the inside and how it affects people in the external world. The internal consequences of confidence seem tremendous to me. I live in a world of paradoxes, and this one is a big one for me. I have tremendous confidence in my talents, skills and ability to learn. In all honesty, I think I have quite a few really good things going on. I know that I can write fairly well. I know that I speak well. I'm confident in my ability to think things through. I feel that given sufficient time that I could learn almost anything. I see where I've been given so many things by my Creator, and I still fear they don't add up to much, because my weaknesses are so great as well. This part of me...well, it just sucks.

I've learned over the years to fake the confidence I don't feel. I've wondered if everybody does this, if confidence is really just a confidence game. A master of a trade makes everything look easy. When you watch someone who knows what they're doing, you trust them. When I was little, I wanted to study tap dancing because of that wonderful scene in the move, Holiday Inn, where Fred Astaire dances with firecrackers. Oh, he made it look so easy, and the only time I could get my heels to tap was by accident.

Real confidence may make life look easy, but I'm old enough now to know that just isn't true. No matter how smoothly it looks like someone is handling something, no one gets out of this life without hurting. I wonder now if the seeming confidence I've envied actually isolated a person. When you look like you're handling everything with ease, who's going to offer you help, even if you really need it? I don't know if that's a fair price to pay for the ease it can create in other situations.

Confidence draws people to you. It can transform plain features into attractive ones. Take it too far though, and it becomes arrogance and has the opposite affect. Arrogance only really attracts sycophants and emotional masochists who want to feel less than someone else. Humility must be a component of true confidence, and humility requires the honesty to look at oneself unflinchingly. That's a real trick, and it's one I think I'll work on my entire life.

Subject suggested by Karen.