Confidence

Self confidence can sometimes be a misleading and unmanageable thing. It can lead you to think that you can do things which are clearly not possible or which do not even remotely pertain to your skill set. For someone whose skill set is very small, self confidence can be a very real problem and can lead to Compulsive Failure Syndrome (CFS), a disorder which causes you to fail at just about everything you attempt, and then feel good about yourself afterwards.

This cycle of failure, followed by self appraisal, eventually collapses on itself and leaves you feeling like a terrible, useless person. There are exceptions, of course. Daniel Radcliffe is one. His consistent failure to be a competent actor has had no effect on his disproportionate ego.

I suffer from an acute case of CFS. I like to think of my skill-set as  'specialised', focused. Specifically, my skills include puns and music. This lack of skills, however, does not prevent me from believing that I am capable of successfully undertaking any activity known to man. Constant encouragement and praise from my wife and other such supportive figures has greatly inflated my sense of self-worth.

Inevitably, an inflated ego leads to illusions of grandeur and a craving for power.

Possibly the hardest thing for someone with CFS to do is to look at his/her own accomplishments objectively. A good way to do this is to compare your own accomplishments with the accomplishments of prominent historical figures and take note of the vast, vast, vast differences between the two. For example;

  Putting batteries in a torch VS the lighthouse of Alexandria. 

or

Making a sandwhich VS Feeding 2000 people with a fish and some bread

or 

Flushing the toilet VS Inventing Hygene

I call this "Grooming your Ego".

Like many things, however, too much of it is bad. Too much Ego Grooming can result in feelings of worthlessness and insignificance. Self-confidence in moderation is the recipe for an accurate, un-exaggerated life.

K