Many of us during the school timing dreamt of going to a college where we’ll do everything starting from rocking the outfit to participating and winning in every competition. Basically, most of us dreamt about college as it was shown in KUCH KUCH HOTA HAI, SOTY (Student of the year), you’ll be the hot chick and only girl/guy blessed with both beauty and brains. Most of us imagined that there will be someone who’ll always be there for us, doing things for us like grabbing a chair, making notes, getting food and whatnot. We all dreamt of what Karan Johar showed us in his fancy movies.
I can say with full confidence that not even 40% of us did what we thought of doing when we enter the college. Ever asked yourself why? Why you didn’t reach that point? Why did you stop dreaming about it? Ask yourself this question and you’ll most probably end up with this one major answer that is Lack of Self-Confidence. Here a few people won’t agree to me and say that this isn’t the reason, there are other reasons like we were not interested or we never tried it so we thought it’s not for us, etc. But even all these reasons lead to the main reason that is the lack of self-confidence. Let’s go back to the school days and find out what went wrong. When we were kids, we used to care about no one. There was no limit to imagination. We all thought of all the impossible things and still had the guts to say and believe that I’ll do this, I’ll do that. Nobody ever stopped us from dreaming big. Most of the times we all focused more on dreaming and didn’t pay attention to what others said. We used to get lost in the classrooms and imagined becoming an actor or the best dancer, making a treehouse in the future and living with our dogs. It all happened because nobody stopped us from dreaming, everybody smiled and said that “Waah beta aise hi socho, acha karoge.” ( Great son, keep dreaming and you’ll achieve it). So it became very obvious for us to believe that everything was hunky-dory and we will find our way easily. Well, now as we all are grown up, we see the world in a different way. We see the sad reality where everything is considered as a competition where we all fight for the first position and can go to any level to achieve that place. Suddenly, facing this reality most of us freaked out and didn’t understand what is to be done to survive in this world. In fact, the fear inside us took its first step when we entered college life where we all strived to make a place in this small world. There are people who made their way out and grabbed that position but most of us failed to do it as we wanted the easiest way out because we were too lazy to do something, that’s where things went wrong. Finding the easiest way took us in the wrong direction. We are under so much pressure for being accepted in the socially cool groups that we forget our own identity, our own grounds. It becomes easier for others to influence us over anything. We start losing the most important jewel that we have that is Self-belief. We lack confidence because we think others are better than us and one more misconception inside most of the people is greater the age, greater the knowledge and experiences. No, it doesn’t go like that. Age doesn’t define your knowledge, you can be a 20-years-old adult and still have the knowledge more than a person who’s double your age. I’d like to add one most relatable example here where you will agree that we lack self-confidence.
Let’s say, In an examination hall there’s so much pressure that when you know the right answer and you have full confidence so you write it down but when you ask your friend and they say that they think so and so is the answer and yours is wrong, no matter how dumb that friend is, you still have second thoughts for your own answer and you cancel the correct answer and write the wrong one because you trust them more than yourself. This can happen for two reasons one you are not prepared well and thus you are not sure and other is that it happens because in the first examination you were all confident about your answer and you didn’t listen to your friend but later on you realized you were wrong so you regretted and thought of believing your friend from the next time. Why you had to do that? Why can’t you give yourself a second chance? When you can believe your friend even when they don’t know things then why can’t you believe yourself who knows things?
Also, you don’t need to hide your personality from anyone. Be confident and proud of who you are, don’t try to change yourself to be a part of a cool group instead make your own cool yet uncool group and take pride in it. You don’t need to spend money on your friends so that they stick to you. If they really like you, they’ll stick around no matter what. If you think that being in the richest group is cool then you are wrong. What’s the use of being a part of the group that doesn’t believe in getting things on their own and only flaunts their parents’ money.
Share your own opinions and take a stand for yourself at least. Try taking baby steps by participating in competitions, sharing your viewpoints, engaging with people. As said by Vishen Lakhiani in his book, The Code of the Extraordinary Mind, that most of the things that we learn about how the world is run are BRULES that is Bullsh*t rules, break those Brules and you shall see the positive change in you.
Don’t compare yourself to anyone, believe in yourself and keep learning and be the best version of yourself. Money doesn’t make a man the best man. It really doesn’t matter that you have the money or not if you have that belief in yourself you can do anything. Confidence not only comes from beauty but it also comes from knowledge, kindness, respect and a good heart.