I was arrogant and sure of myself and maybe it wasn’t justified quite yet. But I had an excuse. I knew my potential. I had rock solid, immovable confidence in it. I knew what I could be, what I would be. And in a way I was already it—it’s just the rest of the world couldn’t see it yet. But I could. And that was what mattered the most.
In general debt is a bad thing, but it’s not always bad if it allows you to make something wonderful. And in the same way you can borrow money you can also borrow confidence from your future self. You can leverage your potential, drawing huge self-esteem against it, and use that to improve your life now.
I was aware of this in my twenties, even as I was unable to articulate it. In my twenties I was a fall-down drunk. I screwed up a promising academic career and flunked out of university. I slept on mattresses in bare rooms with car blankets nailed to the wall for blinds. I was shy and socially inept.
But even in this dark period I had confidence in myself.
Why? Because I knew my potential. I knew what I could be, what I would be. And I knew that all of this was only temporary. That one day I would sort everything out, transcend and become great. It had to happen. My talent was too bright, my vision too unique.
If that sounds arrogant, well . . . yeah. But that arrogance, that self-assuredness saved me. And I mean that in a very real way. You see I was on my knees . I was killing my brain, I was destroying it. And yet somehow, deep inside, I was certain that this wouldn’t be the end of my story. Of my ‘journey’, as people say these days.
So I would often act in a way that subtly seemed to suggest I thought more of myself than perhaps might have been warranted. And that was OK: no-one ever pulled me up on it, although they may have noted it privately.
And here’s the thing: I never felt guilty about it, and I still don’t to this day. Why? Because I never once pretended to be something I wasn’t. I only ever acted in a way that refected what I was in the process of becoming, what it was inevitable that I would become.
It’s OK to leverage your potential. It’s OK to pull confidence forward from your future self. But only allow yourself to take a loan of that confidence which is valid.
You will know the difference, don’t fool yourself.
Finally, most importantly of all, you must always be working to justify that confidence. For just as with any loan, a day or reckoning will arrive when you’ll have to pay it back.
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