Confining Our Confidence Is In Everybody’s Best Interest

Humble thoughts on confidence, instinct and reason

Image by mohamed Hassan

Confidence is such a human trait. I can’t imagine a lion lacking confidence when sidling towards its prey. I can’t imagine a bird failing to fly because of low confidence. For animals, instinct is in control, and instinct doesn’t care about confidence.

For humans, reason is in control most of the time. It is a requirement to live in a community, and it is generally a good idea if we are interested in living better. Confidence has to do with trust and belief, two concepts that belong in the mind. Confidence can be so difficult to achieve or to maintain that it is easy to conclude it must not be a rational process after all, but we could say the same about trust and belief. How do we choose to trust someone? It’s not like we spend years analysing every individual we come across before we decide who to trust. And beliefs? We like to rationalise our beliefs, but they can be contradictory when not utterly unrealistic at times.

Confidence lives there, at the edge of rationality. We can argue our confidence, but the best reasons will not guarantee it. I’ve seen the most talented and hard-working individuals lack all confidence in their abilities. Some seem truly unaware of their skills, while others are aware of their…