I don’t want to get into it too much, but I want to touch upon the subject of self-esteem and confidence briefly.

We often see a lot of books on self-esteem and confidence, but I want to pose the question: do we understand the discrepancy between the two?

Let me start off by stating that it is a fact that a lot of self-help books promote the idea of finding confidence, but many of them never specify exactly what kind of confidence. Confidence, to me, can be many things. It can be one’s own perception of their own self-image, as well as confidence in one’s own abilities. There is an affirmative idea that without self-confidence one will not be able to reach one’s own goals, aspirations, and happiness. This is the idea stressed in these books. If one doesn’t have any self-confidence, one doesn’t get anywhere. Sound familiar? Right, I’m sure you read that somewhere before. This being said do you know what type of self-confidence these books are trying to teach us? Outer confidence, that in many, if not all, cases presents itself in people as self-arrogance, selfishness, and other similar descriptive adjectives.

To contrast this point an understanding of one’s own abilities, intelligence and capabilities present itself in a much more humble and gratifying way.

Living life relying on exterior traits, in my opinion, is the worst way to live. You might be able to succeed while you’re young and sassy. You might be able to project your appearances onto those around you and land a good career. You might be able to swoop a nice boy or girl off their feet. You can neglect the idea of family and live a fast life, all until about the age of 45. So what happens next? Well, that’s where a revelation begins to settle in: Didn’t we hear our elders warning us of this from the start? Did we listen? No, we think we’re right because we know better, we’re smarter, and so on and so forth. I’ve seen it over and over, people hung up on their own exterior confidence and image only to face their later years of life with fear, neglect, and emptiness.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that outer confidence is not important. What I am saying is it is very important but should be built on a foundation of inner love and respect first.

In many cases, people try to establish an outer confidence before realizing the traits that they are confident about on the inside. You’ve seen the movies when a character gets sick and only has a couple months left to live. Suddenly, that character has a huge revelation and changes his or her life drastically. In my opinion, this is one part of Hollywood stories that is not fiction. When you really understand the value of life and the people/things around you, the concept of life changes drastically. When you have a near-death experience or get a grasp on your mortality, you realize that money and superficial things are not important. What is really important is your relationships with the people around you, the people you care about. These relationships are the things that you remember. Only based on those relationships can we truly be certain that we are happy.

All this relationship building is reliant on inner self-confidence. And only inner confidence allows you to form strong deep relationships, which in turn brings calmness to one’s life. With inner self-confidence, one’s mind is not racing thing about the future or past. Instead, the person becomes balanced as he/she gets a full understanding of their own universe. They understand what is best for them and as a result, they develop a very strong intuition. Now, you tell me if you see similar benefits in establishing a healthy inner self-confidence. Maybe we should start looking towards eastern concepts and move towards spirituality rather than confining ourselves to western notions.