Are you filled with self-doubt? Are you unsure whether what you know or what you are currently doing is right? I am. Always.
We are taught to value confidence, strive for it and trust it in those we choose as leaders. We want someone who can stand up on the pedestal and say 'I know the way, follow me'. The more confident they appear, the more trusting we become of their voice, their words and the ideas they peddle.
I am not this person, I am not the portrait of confidence selling truth or making proclamations that I know the path forward, follow me and all will be okay. For me, confidence is too often linked with ignorance and habit where knowing has replaced the curiosity to continue questioning, to keep searching even though there is already a suitable solution.
Too often in my experience, confidence has lead to costs being paid by those who can least afford the bill, those that would have been better suited to have followed their own path. I think this is the hidden cost of trusting confidence, it makes us less willing to take responsibility to explore and learn for ourselves and then reinforces it by giving us someone to blame if things the house of cards topples.
We see it often in the world where people make all kinds of claims, confidently displaying their prowess but when push comes to shove, they shrink away as if in icy waters. What happened to their confidence?
For most who speak confidently about how skillful and intelligent they are often only speak up when times are good but, disappear into the background when times are difficult. They do not trust in themselves to navigate the waters when the waves are crashing and the bodies of the fallen float past and are consumed. At those times, the confident seek support also, someone for them to later lay blame upon if they cannot pull them to safety from the rough seas.
Confidence blinds us from our own blindness, it makes us feel secure even though security is an illusion, it stops us from exploring what may be by giving us the impression that we already know all there is to know. Confidence mocks the explorer, shouts down the questioner, oppresses those that seek for another way, a better way, a greater truth.
It must, for they are a threat to the position so confidently held, to have it questioned, to have information contradict is to be proven wrong and the conflict this creates is too much to bear. When the confident are proven incorrect, they have nowhere to turn, nowhere to run, just a mirror to face facts, to face themselves and admit they do not know.
What is so bad in not knowing? Where is the shame in admitting that one does not have all information available? We treat these people as the ignorant for not holding the information at their beck and call but, who are the limited ones? Is it the one who continually searches to know, or the one who stands still knowing?
We like to feel confident, like to feel like we know what we are doing, know we are on the right path, know that what we know is valuable. But, are we curious enough to find out if this is true, confident enough to doubt ourselves and keep testing the boundaries of our position?
How strong are the fences, how secure the gates? Are you sure that what you know to be true can't be undermined? Are you confident enough to admit that you may be wrong?
This doesn't mean that action can't take place, not knowing it all doesn't freeze us in position making us unable to move forward. Not knowing is what drives us forward into the unknown, what gives us the hunger to embrace the uncertainty.
Doubt and then look to find out.
Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]