http://www.democraticunderground.com/11513261Oh my.
The Canadian locust primitive:
Locut0s (1,431 posts) Fri Feb 15, 2013, 09:54 PM
I hate how confidence means everything in our society.
Getting ahead in life is all about confidence. Getting a job, relationships, friendships, success, it all rests on a solid bedrock of confidence. Those with a lot of it generally face far fewer difficulties, and those that they do face they quickly overcome or brush aside. Certainly intelligence and innate talent play a role in life but it's depressing how little it can matter in the end.
A general / chronic lack of confidence in life immediately closes SO many doors to you that automatically open for others. Just think of what it takes to get a job. You have to be good a selling yourself both on paper, resumes and cover letters, and in person, interviews. I won't say that experience doesn't matter here, it certainly does, but so much of that can be overcome and compensated for with a confident assured delivery. On the flip side the candidate with the perfect resume who comes across as shy and unsure of him/herself will shoot themselves in the foot.
The same concept applies to countless other situations in life, not just jobs. For those of us suffering from life long depression and anxiety issues it can be just a maddening truth to deal with at times.
Now, I dunno about anybody else, but to me, this appears to be the stupidest campfire lit on Skin's island this year, 2013, and that includes campfires lit by the oblate spheroid.
annabanana (44,987 posts) Fri Feb 15, 2013, 09:58 PM
1. To paraphrase George Burns
“Confidence - if you can fake that, you've got it made.â€
Would it surprise you to know that some of the most confident appearing people are riddled with self-doubt?
<<<fakes confidence all the time, especially in confrontational situations.
<<<usually ends up winning confrontational situations.
Tobin S. (5,361 posts) Fri Feb 15, 2013, 10:10 PM
2. I think that's true to a certain degree
But If you think more about it you may find that there are ways that you can prove yourself without having a great deal of confidence in social situations.
I'm not the most confident person, but I am good at what I do. I drive trucks for a living. I'm in the process of changing that, but for now it's what I do. When I go to talk to someone for a job, I come across as reserved and maybe a bit timid. But I have 16 years of safe driving experience in all kinds of commercial vehicles. That speaks for me to a certain degree and will get me in the door at a lot of places. Then they will test my driving ability. When I hop behind the wheel of a truck I can make it do anything I want it to. My low confidence in myself disappears. My timidity disappears. I'm master of the vehicle. When they see that, they know for sure that I'm good.
If you develop a high degree of skill in an area of study or a trade, your confidence will be high when you are working with that skill. It might not be socially, but you will be able to prove that you are good at what you do and the confidence will just come naturally. You don't have to be a socialite to get along okay in life. I think you can do it. I have confidence in you.
Denninmi (5,495 posts) Fri Feb 15, 2013, 10:35 PM
3. It's a learnable skill, and it has a positive feedback loop.
I'm finding out that a lot of it is being brave enough to push yourself into uncomfortable, even frightening, situations, and staring them down until you win. It's that win that builds your self-confidence, and after a while, it becomes self-perpetuating as you learn that this is what you need to do.
Edited to add this link to a thread from last week, where I faced exactly this kind of self-doubt, lack of confidence, fearful moment. And I thought about bolting, but I didn't, and now I'm glad I didn't. Read my three posts from a week ago.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/11146595
Still Blue in PDX (1,120 posts) Sat Feb 16, 2013, 12:31 PM
4. I have a coworker who is supremely confident, while I wear an invisibility cloak.
We do essentially the same job, but she is the one who gets the glory. She even told me that part of her success in school was knowing what the teacher wanted and delivering it, and I have seen her "working" our managers in the same way, telling them things that directly contradict what she has told me in confidence.
I have to remind myself almost every day not to be resentful of her ability to sell herself. I was raised more with the philosophy espoused by Miss Manners, "It is far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help," but I'm not sure that's true.
^^^finds it very true; it just takes time, and primitives tend to be hurriers, impatient.
