CONFIDENCE

Confidence  It's an amazing drug. Worth more in good feelings and possibilities than all the cocaine, pot and speed you could ever get your hands on. It's infectious too, people want confidence, they know how much power there is in that single most important of words. But it's an illusive drug. You can tell yourself you're confident, you can try to brain wash yourself into believing your convincing everyone you are, but nine out of ten times it's a facade, a front held in place by the ego fooling some but not all, least of all you. So what is pure unadulterated confidence, where does it come from and what makes it so special. Well confidence comes from certainty, in an outcome, or a skill, confidence comes from a belief in happy endings or a religion, but in truth these are simply scaffolds to hang confidence on like a structure that needs to be in place so we can feel confident for the moment, it's a relationship with an outside entity that gives us the excuse to feel confident. Unfortunately if the belief in a certain outcome is never realised, a skill becomes redundant or a religion is flawed confidence seeps away and the feeling of certainty is left as a shadow where all the promise once lived.  This is disappointment in not just the loss of confidence but the realisation it was only an illusion in the first place. Now theres a crisis in mis placed confidence, like a fighter who looses for the first time....invincibility gone..however misguided the ego, the pieces can never be put back again. Like a relationship that's pure and everything we hoped for, but in reality is fallible like all human endeavour and once broken like a perfect vase can never be put back together again. All confidence and trust gone. Confidence in ones ability to be right, to succeed, not to fail is another illusion. Everything is relative to the time, the place and the situation, one day what we feel is perfect, the next no longer retains it's allure.  The lesson to learn is that confidence built around these transitory scaffolds is a short term illusion, that whilst it's power is highly addictive and desirable, always ends up as an empty cup. So where does true confidence exist. Is it feeling worth to another, to society, is it feeling valued and recognised. Is it belonging and being believed in. Or might it just be something altogether more illusive but none the less simple. Life is going to challenge everything you think or believe in from time to time. That's what life is about. Having it easy is not the point. We can either be challenged by the world we live in or challenge the world, either way it's how we ultimately play the game that counts. I remember the olds phrase 'it's not the winning that matters it's the taking part and how your play that really counts.' To have true confidence in life, it really must only come down to how you face success and failure and treat those two impostors just the same. We are after all, all at sea all of the time never knowing where the currents of life will take us next, seeking certainty is easy if you learn how to bend with the wind and go with the flow. Giving up on forcing life is the key to allowing yourself to become truly confident and at peace with yourself. Allow opportunity to come towards you and then direct that energy, it's the place where real confidence lies, never to be doubted or lost.