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!
Some of the dumbest idiots are also the most confident.
They’re not pretending. They actually believe in themselves. If you tell them they’re wrong, prove it with data, show them clear evidence that they’ve made a mistake… they’ll continue believing they didn’t make a mistake.
Some of these idiots end up running large companies or even countries. Which is a problem, because very big mistakes get very expensive, especially when the people in charge refuse to accept a mistake was made.
Never be ashamed of being self-critical. It’s a sign of intelligence, and the world would be a better place if more people were like this.
This being said, sometimes it’s important to make a decision and roll with it, because if you had to double check everything it’d take too long and you’d miss opportunities or fail to avoid pitfalls. Like taking too long to dodge an obstacle while driving.