Confidence

Everyday is a struggle for me to keep up confidence in myself. I always try to tell myself that I’m good at what I do, and I am worth something. The thing is that sometimes I fall into the trap of Confidence On Demand. I guess it happens to everyone once and awhile. Confidence On Demand is that to be confident, you demand someone else to say something good about you. Sometimes girls don’t feel smart, until someone tells them that they are. There are days when I feel I look awful, but when someone tells me how pretty I am, my confidence level rises. There’s nothing wrong with getting nice compliments and accepting them. That’s what compliments are for. They make a person think better of themselves. The problem comes in when confidence demands a compliment. If no one else tells you that you’re beautiful, you think that your not. If no one says that your idea was brilliant, you no longer think that it was great yourself. Nothing you do is noteworthy, unless someone else says so. Your self confidence is now in the hands of other people. And the worst thing is, the compliments that are needed to build the confidence won’t always come. I hear sometimes older women talk about how they received many compliments on how they looked when they were young. They are still wonderful people; it’s just that now the compliments don’t come around as often. If they always waited on someone to say something flattering, they wouldn’t ever think they were worth anything. The only person left to give them confidence are themselves. Sitting around waiting for other people to tell you’re this awesome person is really a waste of time. So sometimes on days when I just feel I'm not that great, I don't hope for someone else to make me feel better. I don't wait for one of my friends or my family to tell me that I'm special. I tell me about how wonderful I am. If I think an idea is great, and no one else does, I don’t change it because they don’t like it.  I keep in my mind that my idea is just as worthy of consideration as the person’s sitting next to me. When I look in the mirror, I tell myself that I’m beautiful in case that day no one else does. I've come to learn that confidence should not from what other people say about me, but what I think about myself. So the next time when some nice person comes around with a compliment for me, I’m ready to accept it. But I don’t demand it to support my self-esteem. - Cherrelle