Confidence Counts...

Guest Post:

I had to think up a moral for the story of the Three Little Pigs for a story telling competition for my daughter. After some thought I came up with “The more time and effort we put to build ourselves, the safer we are from all evil” The house of bricks could not be blown away. I believe that the power, the house of bricks that we should build to withstand evil has a name and it is called confidence.

"Evil often holds more power than good. What makes Good weaker? To give an example, say of the power of lies over truth; where stands a discussion in which one party resorts to lying? Have you noticed as I have often seen, that truth falls under the shadow of doubt when the other ‘confidently’ lies? "

One basic fact therefore that makes the Good, the Truth weaker is that the honest person is less confidant. Why should this be so when he is being truthful? It is because the good man will consider the others statement and will be always in danger of believing it, whereas a lier will not consider the others statement and believes only his own lies. Hence the immense surety with which a lier thwarts the others arguments, and hence the pause of the honest man to think over the other’s lies!! The pause, the consideration for the possible good in another, loses him the battle because in the end what wins is the utter power of confidence, nay not truth!! It is Confidence then that makes all the difference!

But as the movie Ra-1 puts it, the honest, the good one can still win the war, even if he loses a few battles. “The evil is more powerful, using power against it will only hurt “. The only option as the movie puts it, is to use its own immense power against it…, say by ducking when it strikes so it goes and hits a wall with all its horrifying force.

To go again with the example of truth vs lies, to win an argument with liars therefore, you have to know the reason why a liar can make you use all your power of shouting and screaming to make you look like the guilty and hence loose the battle. The reason you shout is because

1. Either you end up frustrated trying to explain the truth and seeing that no matter how you put it, the other person does not seem to get your point. You can avoid this reason by knowing that “whatever the other person may be saying however confidently”, he/she knows the truth as well as you;

2. Or he/she makes you unsure of your own truth, using your “consideration of the possible good in another” against you and you end up shouting to make up for your dimming confidence. This is when you have to trust yourself, you have to be confident. This is when you have to stop believing in the possible good in the other, and see the evil one for what he/she is… Evil.

In conclusion, you have to give up fighting “with a truth”, that is as much known to the other as to you and will never win you the battle. But when you speak and act with the confidence that the truth is known, then you will be able to duck the unimaginably forceful power of the evil by using its own power called Confidence against it…

Don’t try always to put on both the balances. You are not being judgemental by calling a spade a spade. Liers and manipulators have their origins in Evil, whatever good they might seem to be doing. Trust yourself, you deserve your trust, …. your confidence.

Author of the post is Jerly Thomas, A blogger, Researcher and Homemaker, She blogs at Thinking Space