“Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day:
he saw it and was glad.”
Then said the Jews to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and you have seen Abraham?”
Jesus said to them, “Before Abraham was, I am.”
Then they took up stones to cast at Him…” – John 8:56-59a
Soon after His baptism, Jesus found Himself alone in the wilderness for 40 days. The first battle He had to fight and overcome in the attendant temptation experience was the battle around His identity. It was not an accident. It was an ego test. Everyone who wants to rise in life will face it. The question is, will you pass it? Even if you decide to play on the fringes of life, your aloofness will still be classified as pride by some people.
Most people are not able to tell the difference between confidence and pride. Every achiever that I know or have read about has faced the challenge at various times of being accused of being proud and highly opinionated, especially by people who themselves suffer from warped self-esteem!
Pride is the product of an exaggerated sense of self-importance that always wants to assert and elevate self above everything and everyone else, including God! It is the shrine that we erect to the idol called EGO. Unfortunately, this over-bloated sense of importance has no basis or validity in facts, reality or experience.
Pride makes it difficult, if not impossible, for anyone who has it to consider alternative opinions, not because he knows he is right, but because admitting that he is, or could even be wrong, wounds his fragile ego. Even when it is obvious that he is wrong, pride makes him feel that apologising for an error is an act of weakness on his part and diminishes his persona. Resistance and rebellion are the standard responses of a proud person to rebuke or instruction. A proud person hates to admit that someone else could be better or know more than him. So, he is always diminishing other people’s achievements and capacity by trying to prove that he knows or can do better than them.
Have you ever worked with a boss or even a team member who seems to think that his ideas are superior to everyone else’s and who will go to any length to pooh-pooh others’ contributions just to be heard? A proud man always has a direction for everyone else to follow until you ask him to lead the way. Then you will see the shallowness of his personality. Pride loves attention and recognition but loathes responsibility.
Confidence begins where pride stops. It is built over time based on a strong sense of identity that spurns three things that anchor the confident person’s conduct. They are: VISION, VALUES and VOLITION. A strong identity consciousness comes from knowing the essence of one’s life that helps him explain and understand his personality, temperament, experiences and circumstances in life. A proper interrogation of these things and the answers got from that exercise reveal who we really are, as opposed to how others perceive us or have tried to make us or expect us to be. More importantly, it helps us to know WHY we exist. Understanding and embracing our WHY helps us to craft a direction for our lives as well as the necessary disciplines to pursue and attain our lofty goals. Every visionary knows that his life is governed by the choices he makes. Most times, his choices will not go in the direction of what is “woke” or expected.
Even when it sometimes comes across as assertive, confidence, unlike pride, is driven by humility and a healthy self-esteem that does not seek to prove anything to anyone, even while pursuing goals that will bring benefits to everyone.
Moreover, a confident person struggles less with integrity issues. Driven by a strong value system, he has a track record, substantiated by facts, experience or current reality, of predictability of conduct. This is what sometimes makes people uncomfortable with him. His life is so rooted in certain core principles that many envy but cannot practice. So, because he refuses to toe the popular line, he is seen as arrogant.
Confidence also comes from undisputable competence. Excellence needs no argument. When a man knows his onions, his capacity gives him a feeling of power that is unmistakable to those around him. Proud people overpromise and underdeliver. Confident people underpromise and overdeliver. The authority of confidence is either acquired through skills or knowledge or it is ascribed to his function. The reality of delegated power by the state is what gives a policeman the confidence to confront and arrest a criminal.
A proud man would do anything that massages or pumps up his ego and at whatever cost, simply because his ultimate goal is to always appear important. His prominence in the public eye is more for his vanity than his value. He will jump at any award or recognition with a willingness to pay top dollar just to get it! His fulfillment index is measured by the external accolades, attention, peer approval or affirmation (this is the basis for most bad habits), the limelight and everything else that points to SELF, rather than the quantum and quality of his contribution.
The confident man on the other hand, does not pursue accolades. He is powered by an inner conviction based on the three Vs identified earlier. He knows when to enjoy or walk away from accolades or public acclaim because they don’t diminish or add to him. He engages or walks away from things and people based on his convictions about what enhances his pursuit and what constitutes a distraction to it. While pride is image-driven, confidence is always purpose-driven.
While pride manifests for applause, confidence manifests for a cause. Where pride wants to make an impression, confidence seeks to make an impact. While pride is injured by criticism, confidence is inspired by it and uses the lessons learnt from it as growth curves. Because of its know-it-all disposition, pride shuts itself to learning and instruction, especially from subordinates. Conversely, confidence grows through learning from anyone, anything and anywhere. While the proud man is more concerned with explaining and justifying an error, confidence admits and fixes it. A confident person will always submit to superior argument, even if it would hurt his ego. True confidence and humility are Siamese twins. A confident man sees no need to prove anything. So while pride is trying so hard to prove a point, confidence simply makes the point.
Until you check your pride at the door, nobody will give you access to the benefits in the room of greatness. In the gathering of great people, a proud man is an unwanted nuisance.
Confidence attracts greatness, but pride repels it. Why? The confident man seeks to serve others while the proud man, like King Nebuchadnezzar in the Bible, wants everyone to bow at the shrine erected to his ego. If God, the creator of all things, says He resists the proud man, why would His creation embrace such a person?
Confidence is the new humility.
Remember, the sky is not your limit, God is!
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