All posts tagged Confidence

  • July 25, 2008

    Head Down

    There’s a point in your life when you realise exactly what matters to you. It doesn’t have to be a poetic Fight Club moment. It could be a slow-moving process where you get so caught up in your life’s inertia that you stop to take stock, and notice everything that you’ve left behind.

    I’ve lived the latter of the two. I’m not quite running lean, but I’ve been subconsciously drifting in that direction.

    The things and people that don’t matter just fade into the background, into the distance as you keep moving. They’re far behind, now, and still caught up in their incessant bickering about endless trivialities. Caught up in the minutiae of life.

    Glenn‘s eighteenth birthday post made me stop and smile. Such optimism and enthusiasm for what’s ahead.

    I can’t pretend that any of the things that concerned me when I turned eighteen were anywhere near as important as the concepts and possibilities that Glenn is currently juggling. I was writing, sure, but without a purpose or an audience.

    Girls. Drinking. The opinions of my peers. These are the things that concerned me at age eighteen. As much as I wish that I’d been grappling with notions of personal accountability or building self-value – I wasn’t.

    Realising that you’ve got to put your head down and just go for it – that’s an important point to reach.

    Stating that ‘nothing else matters’ is over-simplifying a little, but hell, you’re in control. It’s the difference between crawling, or choosing to stand up and walk.

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  • May 3, 2008

    Confidence On Earth

    Hangovers have an unexpected effect on me. Instead of being crippled by the combined factors of apathy and malaise – the usual products of a hangover – I find that my creative output is greater after an alcohol-affected night.

    The sky doesn’t give a shit about humanity. It’ll keep turning, regardless. Our petty thoughts, opinions and relationships are beyond meaningless when considering the enormity of the earth. The human tendency to name these entities – sky, clouds, earth – seems laughable in this context. It’s human nature to attempt to understand, and then dismiss this knowledge as understood. How could we ever completely understand the nature of this planet’s natural environment?

    I don’t mean in terms of scientific fact.

    You look across a valley while driving on a highway. You stare into the vast expanse for a moment. And then you turn your head away, dismissing the opportunity to devote time and thought to the incomprehensible forces that have shaped this planet for x years. Again, applying the human concept of time to minuscule, incremental developments within the core of the very earth we stand on seems laughable.

    “To know yourself is to be yourself.” Sure, they’re cute lyrics, but they contain truth, too.

    Confidence is being able to devote the necessary time to making decisions that you’re comfortable with. Endeavouring to only act with confidence in one’s actions is admirable; the theory is much easier than the practice. Feelings of doubt regarding one’s actions and sense of self may be innately programmed; more likely, these feelings are shaped by our peers during our social development.

    Self-confidence lives in the now, and has everything to do with your philosophy. Really confident people do not need to speak about or flaunt how confident they are. Real confidence is unshakable and is not determined by any outside person, situation or event. You don’t need someone to boost your confidence, or to accomplish something to feel good about yourself. What you need is a philosophy that you can live by, and be proud of yourself for. When you are a good person, when you set out to achieve your dreams, when your morals raise above laws and politics, you will be self-confident. – Alex Shalman

    Tangentially unrelated thoughts incited by a beautiful, sunny Saturday afternoon that I’m soon to spend with my parents and brother.

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