The Downside of Confidence

Day 62 drawing every day. Considering Wednesday's for comics right now. I have a good trend right now with drawing every day. I don't want to get lost in the weeds of comic creation and risk derailing my new habit.

Confidence is an important emotional skill to have. However it does come with a downside. You see when you are confident, and especially if you have been confident for a long time, you run the risk of not emotionally being able to connect with people who struggle with self doubt or who beat themselves up for their mistakes.

It’s easy if you’re a forward leaning person, or a confident person to not emotionally understand what others go through when they tear themselves down for their mistakes. Because you don’t allow yourself to experience those things, you’re too busy moving on or forward. But other people are curled up in the corner mentally going through their mistakes over and over. Tearing themselves apart in the process. Each thought ramping up anxiety, slowing their ability to process, and consuming the minutes of their day.

I am learning though. To connect. To understand. To feel what others feel. It makes me faster to listen, slower to speak, and more compassionate. Life’s not easy for anyone. And the mistakes and struggles others make, which are different than mine, are still their demons to fight. Their battles to win. Their pain to move through.

It’s easy to be compassionate in word. But it’s harder to be compassionate in emotions. To step back from how we handle things ourselves and actually feel the other persons struggles.

Rather than focus on “I don’t struggle with that”. I am learning to stop and say “If I woke up in their shoes, what would that be like? Making those mistakes, struggling with those things? They’re different than me, so I wonder what they experience?”. I continue to realize that it’s different only in context. The experience is the same as what I go through with my own struggles, even though they are different struggles.