On Confidence

 

They say you can’t fake cool and I agree, but there is an argument to be made that you can fake effortlessness, which can frequently find itself sailing harmonically in tandem with coolness. This, of course, presents an issue based on the aforementioned sailing, but can be resolved with the concept of confidence.

The establishment of confidence, which is one imbued with courage and tenacity, delivering both of these platitudes with another pretty solid one: great aplomb, maintains an important commonality with the anterior two terms, which is that you can and can’t fake it.

Why? Because confidence — arguably like coolness and effortlessness — is an illusion birthed by our ids, manufactured by our egos and presented by our superegos. And it won’t exist unless you really want it to.

If you can fake confidence for a long enough period of time without developing an overarching inclination toward pretension, the likelihood is high enough that eventually, that effort will be rewarded with some semblance of an authentic kind of credence. I don’t have scientific statistics to back this up but I like to think that I am a human proof of concept who has learned that the fire, which you are meant to locate and exploit, must burn from within.

Of course, third party variables can and will influence the growth process but confidence, like any other relationship, is like a shark in that if it stops moving — or burning — it dies. There are no upswings without bouts of imposed humility and when the establishment is questioned, there is an understanding that it only exists romantically. It’s a seed we’re all born with that either gets watered or doesn’t. When it does, it blossoms and when it blossoms, it needs to be maintained — otherwise it will wilt. And if it doesn’t get watered by the showers of our minds? Well, we focus harder. We locate that faucet and, yes, let it rain.

As with everything else, a short flow chart goes a long way so let’s tackle confidence the best way we can: using Charlotte’s dexterity as illustrator.

Unanimous conclusion: it is always a work in progress.