by Madeleine KandoA few days ago I did an experiment. I googled the keyword 'self-confidence'. Aside from one pitiful wikepedia entry with some factual information, all I could find was innumerable advise on how to improve, increase or build self-confidence and its counterpart, how to decrease, beat, avoid or overcome self-consciousness.
In general, being confident about something means being certain that it is correct. So does self-confidence mean being certain that YOU are correct?As a child I liked having internal conversations with myself, pretending that I was 2 people. For example: I argued that it was good that my family had left Communist Hungary to come to the West. My other self argued that if we had stayed we could have learned Hungarian and we would not have turned ourselves into political refugees. Does that mean that I was never sure whether I was correct? Does this constitute a lack of self-confidence?
Self-confidence is also having faith in one's own abilities, but the danger of being too self-confident is that it makes you think that you are correct when you are not. How can you improve yourself when you are blind to your own mistakes?
And then there is the unpleasant relationship between self-confidence and self-consciousness. I am fairly confident in my own abilities but when it comes to public speaking for instance, I am so conscious of myself that I become speechless, which poses a slight problem while delivering a public speech.
Very self-confident people have a total unawareness of themselves, especially their own shortcomings. But to tell you the truth I see many positive aspects in being less confident and more conscious of yourself. Here are a few: being less self-confident gives you the ability to listen and learn from others. It means having self-criticism which results in a more objective view of the world. It widens your perspective by embracing other points of view.
Self-confidence should be a temporal, ever changing state of mind, based on what you have accomplished, not based on who you are. You have an A in school, your confidence goes up. You shop-lift, it goes down.
But children these days are told by their parents that they are all special. It is based on the politically correct view that everyone is creative, everyone is a genius in the make. Being ordinary becomes every child's fear. It leads to an obsessive self-focus and breeds feelings of superiority.
The worst by-product of our culture of 'self-confidence' is the inability to identify with the underdog, the 'looser', the less fortunate. If you are told over and over that you should be a success, intelligent, powerful, famous, wealthy, how can you show compassion and empathy?
Believe it or not, there are other belief systems that actually teach the exact opposite. Buddhism for instance warns against taking yourself too seriously. The self is not what counts, it is the interdependence and sharing with others that validates who you are. In that sense, the more self-conscious you are the better. My favorite type of person is one who does not show much self-confidence but has a lot of self-worth. They know who they are, so they don't have to prove it.
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2 comments:
I love this piece -
especially the picture. Yep. That’s me, the ultimate narcissist. I see myself as a lion (except when I swing to the other side, and see myself as a mouse).
But more seriously: This has, of course, been a major topic of discussion for a number of years. I have lectured about this many times, saying very similar things.
My discussions - and those of a variety of political commentators and social psychologists - tend to be under the heading of self-esteem, rather than self-confidence. The self-esteem fad has been such that the State of California, for example, has even had a self-esteem commission, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Also, at the end of the post, you bring up the concept of self-worth. So there are a number of related concepts, and the discussion can become tricky.
But as far as self-esteem is concerned, here is a good little formulaic approach I have used sometimes: The politically correct crowd has been telling us for years that self-esteem must precede accomplishment, that the whole problem with under-achieving kids in the inner cities, etc. is that they lack self-confidence, that criticism (by teachers, parents, etc.) is bad, etc. etc. Well, what about reversing the direction of the causal arrow, and saying (as you do) that accomplishment must precede self-esteem? There are those politically incorrect people like Bill Cosby who say exactly that.
I taught Juvenile Delinquency courses for decades. One of the knee-jerk assumptions of a majority of the bleeding-heart social scientists who write all the books and articles I have used, is that kids become delinquent because they have low self-esteem. Well, as I told my students year after year, there is no shred of evidence for this hypothesis. In fact, when you look at the (adult) prison population, most criminals have the opposite problem: They love themselves, they think that they are superior, invulnerable, they are narcissistic, often to the psychopathic point...
Buddhism is a good example to mention, and I realize that you are somewhat more hostile to Christianity than I am, but don’t forget that it was Jesus - among others - who also preached humility, a central value of monasticism throughout the centuries (remember - "it’s my fault, it’s my fault, it’s my grievous fault”).
So the West also had this tradition, before it switched to the opposite, narcissistic culture. And for another cross-cultural example: Haven't the Japanese often been (somewhat correctly) stereotyped as expressing humility, like when they greet you and say things like "Welcome to my most inadequate abode, I hope that you will enjoy my most imperfect dinner..."?
I have always struggled with what self-confidence is. I mean, everyone has their own interpretation of it. Also, self-confidence is variable and changes throughout the life course. I have worked on my self-esteem by understanding that to some degree everyone has problems including myself. Thus, I see everyone as a work in progress I give myself self-esteem points when I do nice things for myself, help others, dont overeat and when I do my daily reading and writing to keep my brain active.
I think that self-confidence is also about the cultural beliefs that we ascribe to this concept. Different cultures place different values on what self-confidence is. Thus, I tell myself every morning that I am the best and I am a winner. It makes me feel good inside and I psyche myself out even when I feel down some days because if I dont beleive in me, no one else will.
It took me 38 years to get to this place! I hope I stay in it or elevate higher.
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