Uncertainty vs Confidence

“Most people are idiots,” my father says.

His implication is not meant to disparage the majority of the population, but rather to empower his children to believe that the people who are creating, learning, and executing things are not usually special or gifted, they are simply the ones taking the actions that lead to accomplishment. What one person can do, you could also do.

I’m a learner, above all. I love to acquire knew knowledge and new skills. I love to build on the collection of information I already have, fill in my gaps, make my knowledge more cohesive. I keep my mind open to being incorrect, to new perspectives, to new ways I might improve.

I often ask questions like a beginner, with a beginner’s mind, because that’s what gets me the most information. I’ve learned many times that I’m missing some important point, some basic principle, even though I’m well onto learning advanced techniques or ideas.

You might have heard something like, “As the flame of our knowledge grows, the more it illuminates the boundlessness of our ignorance.”

But knowing that brings about a problem. It will shake your confidence. Only dummies believe they couldn’t be wrong, or that they’re seeing the whole picture.

I hate to get philosophically cliché, but Socrates was known for pointing this out—that people pretend to know things, but when pushed, they can be sure of very little.

But we can’t live in a perpetual state of indecision and uncertainty. We could, but it’s not all that fun or enjoyable.

Also, confidence brings about action, and even the flow state, while indecision happens in your mind and halts action. If you’re about to cliff dive, and people have already jumped in front of you and survived, that does not necessarily mean you will. They could have had some knowledge you didn’t about where to jump. They could have gotten lucky.
Maybe you should climb down and check.
Maybe keep a spotter down below.
Maybe the spotter can’t be trusted.
The intelligent, calculative person might never jump.
The brave, confident one will experience the rush of the air around them, the brilliant splash into the water, and the thrill of survival.

 Of course, there’s a middle ground, and a bell curve that shows where each of us might lie on the scale of overcalculating and overconfident. I can’t decide if 30 years is an incredibly long time or a blink, but it took about that long to understand how to balance confidence and the simple fact that I can know very few things for sure.

I was leaning too far into not knowing in order to learn more.

I wonder if this is just what happens with age. As we get older, there are less people older than us to remind us that we don’t know it all. More often we’re the most experienced person in the room, and our confidence grows from that experience.

I know I’ll always be a learner, and I’ll keep my head open.

Right now I’m more confident than ever that I can be wrong.

But instead of that fact holding me back, it pushes me forward. I can move right along, doing my best, expecting to be wrong, expecting something to happen that I didn’t expect. Knowing I’ll adjust. Knowing every experience is just learning and refinement, forever.

My confidence comes from knowing I can bob and weave with the information that comes along, not in knowing exactly what’s going to happen.

Know where you want to go, make a plan to get there, take those actions, recalibrate.

Be present along the way so you can be present when you get there.