real confidence is status fluidity
Truly confident people are fluid with status.
They can accept criticism. They can be teased and laugh at themselves. They can even be cringe and not care. But they also avoid false modesty and lean into moments where the attention is on them, stepping into the spotlight rather than shying away from it.
I read somewhere: “The less confident you are, the more serious you have to act.”
Confidence is internal comfort and security regardless of what others say or do. In any environment, confident people have a sense of safety in themselves. They don’t seek status, but they don’t avoid it either. I think this is why they always seem so relaxed.
Picture anyone ‘confident’ you notice in the office or meet at an event. They’re confident because they are unapologetically themselves. They know who they are, what they want, where they’re headed. They don’t try to be anyone else.
You can tell. When someone has confidence. Not boisterous bravado. But real confidence. When they have a concise sense of their own identity and don’t need to exaggerate or gloat about their success or wealth or work ethic. When they talk about their strengths and shortcomings with equal vulnerability.
When I was 19, someone I really respected told me I was cocky. In reality, I looked overconfident because inside I was so unconfident. I was compensating for my insecurity. Wearing a mask because I didn’t want to be myself.
But, it ruined me. Those few words tore away any shred of confidence I had. For at least a year.
In a dramatic reversal, I was determined to be the most humble human in existence. Nothing I accomplished was notable, worth even the smallest of celebrations. I stamped out any embers of pride. I passed off any compliment to sheer luck. I was terrified of anyone thinking I was cocky again.
I confused humility with low self-esteem.
It’s been a long road back.
I would say I’m quite confident now, but it’s hard to put a finger on confidence as a sensation. It’s easy to spot in others, but almost impossible to see in myself. Any confidence I have built has been from confronting my fears, keeping promises to myself, setting aggressive goals, and proving that I can do hard things1. Really, just cultivating agency. A bias towards thinking emphasizes insecurity, while a bias towards action emphasizes capability. In other words, confidence.
But what I can put a finger on is I’ve allowed myself to accept compliments.
There’s an old story of a young man shouting slurs at Buddha while he was teaching a crowd of villagers.
Buddha turned to the young man with a smile and asked, “Tell me, if you buy a gift for someone, and that person does not take it, to whom does the gift belong?”
The man, surprised by the question, thought a moment and answered, “It would belong to me because I bought the gift.”
“That is correct. And it is exactly the same with your anger. If you become angry with me and I do not feel insulted and reject it, then the anger falls back on you. You are then the only one who becomes unhappy. Not me. All you have done is hurt yourself.”
The words someone says, hateful or loving, are a gift they extend.
In the same way it’s wise to turn away anger, it’s hurtful to turn away a sincere, heartfelt compliment. Instead of accepting the spotlight, it’s running behind the curtain from fear of your own success.
Usually when someone says “I love your writing” or “that essay was awesome,” my old instinct is to dismiss and deflect, “yeah but I could have done more” or “I just got lucky”. But now, I find my face spreading into a slow, warm smile, pausing to savor the integrity of their words, with a breathless “thank you” leaving my lips.
Your humble servant,
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👋 what i’ve been up to:
Preparing for an upcoming trip to “the real Greenland”. Will share more next week (:
On Wednesday, I released my first deluxe essay on ‘slowness as an ideal’ for patrons. With a behind-the-scenes look at my process from initial idea to published product (including how I initially planned to write about technology’s impact on memory) and an audio reading.
This weekend I’m camping with family at a provincial park.
✍️ quote i’m pondering:
American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson on revealing your character:
"People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character."
📸 photos i took:
Who comes to mind as the most confident person you know? What is it about them? What’s the signature of confidence?
Was there a turning point in your life when you began to feel more confident?
Do you struggle more with the low-status or high-status side of real confidence?
I wasn’t sure how to work this in, but I think confidence and self-respect are intertwined. Perhaps the same thing.
If you want to be confident, you have to do things that make you respect yourself.
And if you don’t respect yourself, no one else will.
Respect is more important than admiration. People may ask you to do things that will make them like you more, but respect you less. This almost always ruins the relationship.
First person who comes to mind.... my mother. She knew who she was, rejected where she came from as limitation (dirt poor poverty), put on her clothes and makeup like she was royalty. She tried to heal us when others wounded us.
I don't know if it was true confidence or just a mask. It was hard to see inside her and most of the time she didn't seem to care about anyone's opinion of her. But there were moments in the dark when her confidence weighed heavy. But she was also confident enough to admit it and practiced Banshee wails in the bathtub to rid herself of grief (you could hear her from anywhere in the house). She did not apologize for who she was.
Everyone loved her. She made us feel alive and confident in ourselves. ❤️
What I do know... is it's impossible to realize just how beautiful someone is until the is becomes a was. May she rest in peace.
“Truly confident people are fluid with status” I read that title and it made me pause and think - tell me more. What an excellent description of what true confidence is. I never thought of it this way so thanks for opening me up to a new interpretation of confidence. Neither parent of mine demonstrated true confidence and I certainly don’t. But somehow my brother does. He definitely shows a lot of the characteristics you describe here. Thanks for an excellent essay.