Today I like who I am.

This has been on my mind lately: confidence. Confidence itself is considered sexy and attractive, but too much confidence is suddenly unattractive.

Growing up, I was a happy kid but I’m not sure if I was a confident kid. My parents would always tell me to be humble. Don’t be a show-off. Don’t be a know-it-all. I was never the first one to raise my hand to answer a question even if I knew the right answer. When someone else answers it or if no one answers it and the teacher does instead, I’d feel a pang of regret.

As the years passed by, I was no longer confident that I had the right answers. I found myself putting my hand up less and less. It was easier to just listen to the right answer. It was easier not to be wrong.

Now as an adult, I look around at other people and I feel like no one is really that confident anymore. A pimple can ruin someone’s day. Getting dumped by someone somehow makes us feel like no one else in the world will love us, or even more ridiculous – that we don’t deserve love. Some asshole says something mean to us once and it stays in our mind for the next 7 years and resurfaces when we are trying to sleep.

We are not confident about our faces or our bodies. We can call a Christmas tree pretty but we have a hard time calling ourselves that. We are not confident in being moms and dads even though there’s nothing in life that really prepares you for this until you literally become a mom and dad. We are not confident in being someone else’s partner, even though each relationship we have with someone is new and different. We are not even confident in our selves! We don’t always believe we will get the job or even have enough skills or experience to apply. Sometimes, we are not even confident in who we are. Like am I a good person? Am I a selfish person? Am I a good friend? What am I good at? I don’t know! Who am I?

We do this to ourselves and we think it’s crazy that someone else is not confident. We look at our best friends and go, “Why don’t you see you are a beautiful and amazing person?” We look at our partners and go, “Why do you even like me?” We go to someone who just got dumped and say, “You can do so much better”. But when the situation is reversed, we no longer say those things to ourselves and when someone else says these things to us, it just doesn’t feel true.

I wrote in a previous post that my biggest fear in life is to hate myself:

My take on how I go through life is this: I am not alone, I have me. I will always have me.  Consequently, I can never get away from me. If I like me, then life will be pretty cool because I will be spending my forever with someone I like. If I don’t like me, then life will suck no matter what.

Over the years, I’ve worked really hard to become someone I would like. I studied more, exercised more, socialized more, dressed myself up more – it’s like adding layers of self-confidence to myself. 

This is how I’ve been combating my insecurities over the years – adding layers of self confidence to myself. And while this worked for awhile and helped me be productive, it’s not really a solution. Why? Because these layers of self-confidence are nothing but thin shallow layers.

Being smarter, fitter, prettier and fancier can only give you a sense of confidence for so long. Confidence must come from within. Sounds cheesy and unrealistic (like what does this even mean lol), but it really does. It doesn’t come from looking good in a picture or having a lot of followers or subscribers. It doesn’t come from losing weight or getting into the honour roll. These are all things you can be proud of and happy about, but it doesn’t guarantee confidence. You can be the most impressive person in town but still have less confidence than a 6 year old who thinks their fridge drawing is the best.

True confidence, for me, came at a time when I was feeling like a piece of shit. I was not happy. I was not proud of who I was. I did not understand why people still wanted to be around me.

I told myself again: I am all I have. This is who I am stuck with so am I going to be supportive of myself or am I just going to hate myself? I made it my mission to become my own best friend and it has changed my life for the better.

What changes when you become your own best friend? Suddenly, the mistakes you made in the past are not so bad. They are forgivable because your best friend deserves a second chance to be better. You believe in them.

What else changes when you become your own best friend? You begin to see a little bit of what other people see in you. Your crooked tooth becomes charming and your acne is no longer a big deal. Your weight gain doesn’t really change anything about you and maybe finally you feel like you are kind of funny/smart/pretty/nice.

Now, confidence to me is no longer about looking good on the outside. It is about feeling good on the inside. It’s about trying to do something even though you suck at it. It’s about not really giving a crap if someone else doesn’t like you because you still like you. It’s not about trying to impress anyone. It’s about just having a good time being you.

Is this new perspective narcissistic? I don’t think so. I think we should all love our selves more because I am very certain that low self-esteem is affecting more people than narcissism is. When someone doesn’t like us, I hope we can all pull out the Lizzo inside of us and say we are feelin’ good and we are going to walk our fine asses out the door.

If I know the answer or have a good idea, I’m going to say it. If someone compliments me, I’m going to say “Thank you” instead of denying it. If someone calls me ugly or stupid, I’m going to know it’s not true and that’s all that really matters.

I am going to raise my hand for me and I hope you all do too.

Sincerely, Loewe