I’ve spent some time reflecting yesterday and I realized that. When people want you to be confident they don’t want you to be actually confident, they want you to pretend you are. It is idiotic and makes no sense, but it explains a lot of situations in which I behaved the wrong way.
confidence to me means the opposite of that. it means questioning your asssumptions, approaching things from a different angle, reflect, recalculate, asking for a second opinion. Because I’ll end up with greater confidence that my assertions are more truthful. But apparently doing all that makes people think I’m insecure. Shit!
To add to this, what feels like “faking” confidence can be reframed as not needlessly pointing out the risks and insecurities that are inherent in any action or knowledge. It’s not dishonest, because some level of uncertainty should be assumed.
If I guide my friends through a city and go “eeeeh… I think it is maybe this way” every few blocks, I only invite them to worry and put an accidental burden on them to try and double-check my navigation. To me, that is inconsiderate. If I am all “this way, friends!” they can just trust me and chat about dogs or plywood manufacturing. A risk of “whoopsie, we need to loop around this block” is perfectly fine by most people.