Deeper than the Bone

      If I had to pick one topic that seems to pop up everywhere on podcasts and book titles, it would probably be “how to produce home-made cotton candy en masse”. If I had to pick a second, it’d be “How to raise one’s confidence.” Today, we’ll talk about the latter. I can already imagine the disappointment on your face that we won’t be tackling the cotton candy conundrum. I may or may not be saving that as a holiday special.

Let’s start with a definition: Confidence is the belief that one can have faith in or rely on someone or something. Self-confidence is the belief that one can rely on oneself.

We’ll take this step by step. Say you meet someone new (let’s name him Klein-Howard). You won’t trust him with taking your dog out for a walk after only knowing him for 5 minutes. Maybe you won’t even do that after a week or month of getting to know him. Before you trust him with something as precious as your little fluffy, you will ensure that he is trustworthy. This means that what he says and how he behaves coincide, and you agree with his specific values. Only then will you be able to enjoy your afternoon indoors while Klein-Howard is out walking Biscuits in the rain.

Klein-Howard had to earn your confidence.

It seems that I must earn my own confidence in much the same way. Living a life of hypocrisy and frequent lies is a difficult way to build faith in myself. Acknowledging the truth, seeing myself for who I am, accepting and working on my shortcomings while being humble about my strengths...that will breed confidence.

Taking this approach leads us to an interesting conclusion - and you may have already drawn it yourself: Low self-confidence may be nothing other than a symptom. It is a symptom of living a dissonant life attempting to evade reality, patching bullet holes with band-aids. There are undoubtedly other factors at play here as well…genetic disposition, upbringing, etc., but many of those are out of my control. What can I control? My thoughts and my actions.

What does this mean? Not living out my faith, not saying the truth, exhibiting behavior - even if secretly - that I am ashamed of, hiding my perceived flaws, not desiring to live in harmony with reality…that is what lowers my faith in myself and kills my confidence.

Now, there is still an additional piece to add to this puzzle, and now it really gets exciting. This idea of confidence being a result of one’s decisions and behavior is nothing new. Around 175 AD, Marcus Aurelius noted in his diary, “You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will have strength.” Aurelius recognized that strength comes from focusing on what one can control. One hundred years earlier, in the New Testament writing 1 John the word παρρησία (parresia) is used to refer to self-confidence in verses 2:28 and 3:21.

2:28 And now children, remain in Him so that when He appears we would have confidence and we would not be ashamed in His presence.

“Remaining in Him”, as in remaining faithful to God and following Jesus’ teachings, allows one to stand confidently and absent shame before God.

3:21 Loved ones, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God. (-my translations)

If one has a clean conscience and lives accordingly, he will stand confidently before God.

Real self-confidence cannot be faked. It goes deeper than the bone. It does not lie within us but instead within our past and how we have conducted ourselves. It must be earned through discipline, virtue, and searching. Every lie we tell, tears us down. Every truth we speak, builds us up. I think it’s easy to form facades to hide weakness and disparity between ideas and actions, even from oneself. Coming face-to-face with the truth takes courage and can be one of the more challenging things that must be done, but it is a step towards building true self-confidence.