So we’ve all heard it so much and many times before: success is something that confidence gets. But as I’ve learned all my years on earth; yes and also no. My life experience has shown me that there are so many grey areas to any mindset or belief. And as much as we’ve all yearn for something clear and easy, like a “paint by numbers” canvas, success is something more complicated. Life can be seen as a bunch of scenarios that we just have to manage, make decisions and take action on. Whether we’re looking confident or not has nothing to do with the efficiency, or amount of positive outcome in our lives. If anything our confidence can be seen as a passive facade. Like trash talking the opposing team before a match. It’s like an attitude that can be acted out and has nothing to do with the task at hand. Problems will present themselves in our lives. And we just have to solve them. We don’t really have the time to decide to be confident. We only have time to fix our lives, to be in our lives and try to enjoy it.

Because confidence is a feeling, an act or appearance, it has little to do with the actual problem solving tasks that presents themselves daily. We actually need skills. Different skills for different problems and whole combination of them as well. For example when I worked on my first ship as a hairdresser, the clients were assigned to me. And I had to perform fast, with no mistakes, and give ultimate client satisfaction every time. And I never had even a minute to waste on how to look “confident”. All my attention and energy was put on the tasks at hand. The client didn’t care if I looked visibly confident. They wanted visible results in their hair only. And that’s the true nature of confidence. It’s not something I need to feel or have others feel. It is nice to have inner confidence in the real sense, but that’s not necessarily something that can be seen. The same logic applies to love and dating. While confidence is good, it alone cannot produce the outcome.

Appearing confident is great when it comes to getting a job, and it helps us through an interview and helps us appear calm. But even the in the best job interviews, a person has to also balance that with some modesty, to show an ability to follow rules. There is only a smidgen of confidence actually needed. Confidence on a personal growth level is not that necessary either, because it has nothing to do with self esteem, or the desire to learn. Confidence can be used to cover up when we don’t even like ourselves, and gives us excuses without having to change or fix ourselves. I grew up having very low self esteem. I was very shy and felt unworthy of lovers or friends. And I had to work really hard on finding things in me that I could say that I liked. And even after finding theses things I had to convince myself that I was good. I still work on self esteem till this day, And that’s a lot of work. Self love is closer to to being humble and open.with self acceptance. So again, confidence is different to that.

Confidence is also easy to fake. That’s right. We all know someone who is confident. They value themselves and the image they project. But when you actually get to know them, we feel they are insecure, jealous of others, and passive aggressive to get what they want. Confidence is a vehicle of disguise for them. The performance of confidence makes them feel they have the right to lead someone or manage something. They use confidence to hide the uncertainty they feel instead of examining where it comes from. I don’t want that kind of confidence. It’s actually very ugly, and not coming from a good place in our spirits.

Confidence is great, but it doesn’t lead to inner happiness. Because of it’s performative nature, it’s always dependent on others to affirm it. It’s outside of us and requires an audience. If we perform confidence to get validation from others, it becomes a job, which in itself cannot bring us happiness. The act of being confident can not therefore make us happy. It can however make us arrogant, indifferent, or even jaded as a related feeling. And those things are not great feelings.

Another thing to think about: Confidence is not often associated with being feminine, or soft. Confidence is also an adjective that is often the opposite stance from being caring or sweet. And like I said, while it has some value in the “go getter” career mindset, it has very little value if we want to feel like a gentle, feminine being. Traditional, ethereal, beautiful femininity is demure and modest. That is not something confidence can get us, or the demeanor it embodies.

Also, there’s something to be said about modesty. It’s truly an underrated character trait these days. Modestly is about knowing one’s worth, but the refusal to flaunt it. That’s a classy gesture. We’re all so tired of having that loud energy in our face. On social media, it’s about how to be a diva, how to get what we want. Why have we all been reduced to beings that only want, and aim to get things, when we don’t have anything to GIVE? How about we evaluate if we have anything to give before huffing and puffing about how great we are? Confidence is great, but it’s an overrated character trait in our society. I elect for a re-awakening of our senses and abilities for something more authentic. Let’s be modest, aim to listen and give to the community. And after that, we can build a future we want based on love, and not have the time for pompous, delusions of ourselves; or the performances of confidence that we are pressured to exhibit.