A Shaky Confidence

A Shaky Confidence
 
Confidence means to trust or have faith in a person or thing, the state or quality of being certain, and a feeling of assurance, especially self assurance. I know so many people say they are confident but I often wonder is that real or is that a show? If I was able to plug into your brain and see inside what would I really see? Would you be so confident if I got to look past that outer wall? What about that protective outer shell and inside to the hidden confines of your mind? If your called cocky, are you really cocky or is it that you play the game a little stronger than others do? You bark to protect a weaker bite? How about people who are timid and lacking confidence that is noticeable to everyone?  Do they just show their true colors with nothing hidden? But because of society are told they lack in confidence? Is the true question what is confidence? Who decides what confidence is and how much we should have or not have to be normal? Are there times it is okay to be more confident or less?

Well for me it is a battle, a struggle. Confidence for me is sometimes fleeting and yet sometimes overwhelming. Tell me I need to take a trip and then my confidence may be rattled. Tell me to go score a goal playing hockey and my confidence will be overwhelming as I know I can do it. So why the extremes are what I want to know and how do you make it so that level is balanced in life? Society has told me to believe that because I struggle with anxiety and sometimes my confidence shakes with it that I am weak and that I am not up to the norms with society. Well who decided that? If I struggle with something does it make me weaker? I don’t see that it does make me weaker than you or you or you. It may make my confidence different in that instance but so what, really. What does it matter? It shouldn’t matter as we get where we get how we get there. My route may be slower than yours or different than yours but it does not mean yours is better and mine is worse. Same deal with things if the roles are reversed playing sports. I am truly confident and project that as well. So does that make me a better player than someone who is not? It shouldn’t but because of society I bet you it does make it the case. If I believe I am going to succeed and you do not believe you are then who has the better chance to succeed? Well most times it would be the confident one but what if that is just a shell? Who is successful then? Because I project, you believe and choose me….. However I could be the one who is over confident. Should you underestimate someone because their confidence is shaky? I think that would be a mistake. I think the better choice is to help them and help to stabilize their confidence. I believe in you and you believe in me, so thus together we can instead of separately I will and you may. Together, get it done.

So then how can I go from being confident and making great strides in my battles with anxiety disorder and diabetes to quickly a shaky self confidence that has doubt creeping in from the sides slowly clouding my vision; from clear to a dull gray overcast and eventually to a rain if I do not reverse it. The difference this time is I know the path and instead of just following it to its conclusion I am willing to think through it, look outside the box I have known and see if I can step back and reverse course despite being shaken. How do I do that though? I never have been able to do it before but then again I have done things recently that I never thought possible for me before. Thus if I keep myself in the box then the box will be what I know and where I will stay as for no matter how small the box is, it is my box and it is comfortable. If I can force myself to grow as I have recently then the box no longer feels like it is big enough for me. I need a newer box!!! So now though with a shaken confidence the box looks real nice and cozy. A safe place to crawl and be protected from what I fear and what has shaken me. I do not need to fear it in my box as eventually it will go away and maybe comeback some other day but maybe not if I stay in the box.

And yet here I am with another battle on my hands. I have won so many recently but just a loss seems to have shaken that confidence and thus I wonder was it a shell I wore and if you plugged into me would you have seen a shaken confidence inside all along? Or was the confidence real and only now has it regressed to a shaken confidence after the latest battles? I think it is shaken from these battles as they unsettled me and came from places I had battled before. I felt sick this past week and had an upset stomach which brought back fears of traveling but just a week or so ago I traveled to a mountain and hiked it with no fears. A huge victorious battle for me and yet days later an upset stomach which is a normal thing that from time to time happens to everyone but it shakes and rattles my confidence. So is it a shaken confidence that allows for other battles to be fought with less vigor? I think that is the case but is it? Who gets to answer that question? You? Me? Society? It is my battle, not yours or society’s so I get to answer that on my own. Can you help me? Will you help me? Can I be confident in that? Where is my box?

I do not want the box though as I feel I have outgrown it. I do not need the box anymore and maybe that is enough for a shaky confidence. I do not want to hide there anymore. I want to face each and every battle on a new front with no safe place for a timeout or retreat with hopes of it solving itself. I can retreat if need be but only to regroup and to try and new way to charge ahead and fight the fight with a shaken confidence if I must because the confidence can only grow stronger if I battle. If I retreat to my box then I solidify the shaken confidence and confirm that it should be shaken. To battle is to fight and to strengthen win or lose by trying and forging a resistance to the urge to retreat and hide. To retreat and hide does not make me stronger for the next battle at but it has quite the opposite affect as I will believe the shaken confidence is there again and thus will just look to reaffirm it. So change the thinking and somehow fight for that will reaffirm a stronger confidence which in the end will breed victory for victory instead of defeat.

So I battle with a shaken confidence as I transfer colleges and the road becomes bumpy. In the past the bumps would derail me as my confidence would tell me to fear what was ahead and because it was not smooth sailing like playing sports that is was likely to be met with defeat. Now, now though, the road is bumpy and I push forward not because my confidence is high in the outcome being what I want it to be but because I know what the outcome is if I retreat and that outcome is familiar to me as I have gone that way before, I have retreated to it and it is in the box. I must even with a shaken confidence push forward over the bumps, around the bumps, forward till the battle is won or lost at a different place and I can take confidence in the simple fact of not taking the easy way out and retreating but forging ahead to the unknown. I for once want to see what is around the next corner or over the next bump in the road. I will not stay in my box and the confidence that I do have is that I can stay out of the box and can battle the ways of my past. So how shaken is my confidence? Do you know? Do I know? By society’s standards my confidence would be considered low and not on par with the norms because I am not where they say I should be right now in life. However, I think I am more confident, shaken or not then I have ever been in my life. I will take my shaken confidence and move forward my way not yours and not society’s but do not doubt me for I am moving forward.

A shaken confidence will become and strong solid confidence as I will not shy for the battles and if I lose, I will fight them again until the victory is mine!! Mind, body, and soul!!!