Tuesday, February 22, 2011

I Have Confidence?

I know it’s been ages since I’ve updated here and for that I apologize: life got a little out of hand for a while there. I have, however, made some good progress and am working on getting things back under control. Last week really showed me how overextended I am in my professional life and how empty my personal life has become. So, I’m working on it.

One of the things I have been working on recently is my confidence. My self-esteem has taken a serious beating in the past couple years and it has become very noticeable lately. Part of why I haven’t written much lately is because I’ve felt that whatever I may say would be worthless. I am cautious by nature and constant failure has conditioned me to accept defeat and avoid further risk.

Some honest spiritual self-assessment has been in order for a while now. Do I have everything figured out? Absolutely not! But I can feel myself growing. It hurts, but I am finding out more and more who I truly am—or at least discovering who I am not. True confidence lies in a knowledge of who you are. I have been fearfully and wonderfully made and should live that way.

My Puritan heritage discourages the elevation of Self and rightly so. However, there is a fine line between pride and confidence which is often goes unacknowledged. Pride is poisonous; confidence is healthy. The essential difference is in the source of our power: pride says “I can do anything because I’m awesome,” whereas confidence says “I can do anything because God is awesome.”

If you see me doing something stupid, please let me know because (fair warning) I intend to be trying new things. Conquering my fear of failure is at the top of the list. I realize that I will continue to fail, probably a lot… but should that stop me from living? I am obviously still here for a reason, which most likely does not include being too scared to ever do anything.

1 comment:

  1. Instead of "self confidence" I like to think of it as "God confidence".

    Have fun trying new things! I'm ready for some new things to in my life! :)

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