Traits For Success: Confidence/Pride

In my opinion, based on what I’ve observed through my own life and the lives of others, one of the most important character traits for a happy life is confidence. When I was a young child, the culture around me was somewhat ascetic in nature and abhorred pride as some sort of sin. I personally think that this attitude impaired and delayed my personal development, although I suppose it did teach me to question my environment eventually. Toward the end of my middle school years, I decided that I was absolutely sick of this disgust for pride, even pride that is earned. When people criticize pride, they often talk about pride that is unfounded or based on lies (like the Dunning-Kruger effect, where pride is unearned because it is not backed by sufficient knowledge), but pride can be legitimately earned.

Furthermore, I think rationally-derived pride is great because it naturally encourages us to better ourselves and rewards us for doing so. When I thought that I was not supposed to be prideful, I had low self-esteem even though there was no reason not to be happy with myself, because I thought that was the way things are supposed to be. The result of that was an unwillingness to challenge myself, thinking that I could not handle what was in front of me, and a lack of improvement in the areas that I now care about.

On the other hand, once I learned to embrace and earn pride, I was able to take on far more challenges, conquer them through a mix of hard work and talent, and develop more pride. It is a built-in reward system that people are actively and irrationally denying themselves. 

And to be clear, I mean deriving pride from achievements. Deriving pride from doing nothing is better known as complacency, and complacency won’t lead you to become better at anything. Some people get by through insecurity telling them that they need to be better, but I think it’s a more pleasant experience to work toward actualizing your potential, and when you put your pride on the line, try not to take the hit too hard when things don’t work out.

I don’t think that humility is worthless, but humility needs to be rational as well. The ultimate Stoic goal is self-awareness, being the understanding of what you can and cannot do. Pride represents a pleasure derived from understanding what you can do. On the other hand, rational humility represents an aware, potentially goal-seeking attitude toward what you currently cannot do. In areas that you care about developing in, the goal is to turn more and more things that you currently can’t do into things that you can do, developing more pride.

In addition, pride and confidence shine through in interactions with other people. Some natural aspects of body language show confidence, like having more open posture instead of more closed posture, or standing tall and strong. In the working world, you want your employer or people who rely on you to be confident that you can deliver, so if you know you can succeed and you can use some of those same reasons to convince others that you can succeed, it’s a recipe for greatness.

I still look back fondly on most of the challenges I’ve accepted, even if I didn’t always succeed. I really enjoy working to improve my skills in areas that I appreciate. I’m not necessarily saying that everyone should enjoy the same thing, but what I am saying is that in this society, there is a massive payoff for those who enjoy improving themselves, both monetary and mental, especially given the myriad of different challenges you can take on in the developed world without putting your life on the line. Don’t forget, you lose 100% of the opportunities you don’t take.