On Confidence

What often distinguishes fulfilled from unfulfilled lives is an ingredient that’s not part of the educational curriculum and that can sound superficial, weird and even negative: confidence.

School (once again) didn’t help along the way. It taught us to stay in our lane, to be good, but not “too good” and to trust in established authority. The latter isn’t necessarily bad, it just doesn’t help us in this case.

Part of becoming an adult seems to be to embrace the painful realisation that grown ups don’t actually have all the answers – and therefore that we have every right to think things through independently. We need to encourage a constructive suspicion of authority, a path between obedience on the one hand, and scepticism on the other.

Though we assume that we, like everyone else, must want to be confident, in our hearts, we may harbour private suspicions that confidence is, in fact, really rather an unappealing state of mind. We might, without necessarily fully realising it, find the idea of being truly confident strangely offensive – and secretly remain attached to hesitancy and modesty.

It isn’t unfortunately enough to be kind, interesting, intelligent and wise inside: we need to develop the skill that allows us to make our talents active in the world at large. Confidence is what translates theory into practice. It should never be thought of as the enemy of good things. We should allow ourselves to develop confidence in confidence.

It takes courage to grow confident. It takes time, good friends and a broad view of the world and oneselves place in it. We need to understand and trust the fact that everyone has their unique path and that nobody is stealing anybody’s place in this world.

Extra:

Being confident is still pretty stigmatized especially when it comes to women, their aspirations and their abilities. It has been shown that this comes from the fact that from a very young age, we teach little girls to give their best and not to fail, while everyone tells boys that it’s okay to sometimes make mistakes. Boys are thus taught bravery, not perfection. And from that mindset they grow up with, that it’s okay, they don’t have to be perfect, they can just try something out without the fear of failure (but with the sheer knowledge that, indeed, failure might be possible, although with almost no negative consequences), they end up being more courageous, more eager to put an idea into practice; altogether more confident in themselves.

Most girls are taught to avoid risk and failure. To gravitate towards professions they know they are gonna be good in, even perfect in. Boys on the other hand are taught to play rough and take risks.

It is not a question of ability. The difference is in how boys and girls are taught to approach challenges. Because women have been socialized to aspire to perfection, they are overly cautious and not confident enough in their abilities.