Confidence

Or, how you can do any thing

Jeremy Zerby
Jul 27, 2017 · 3 min read

Today I bought a new pair of boxer shorts. I have really needed more underpants for a while now. It is just silly to have to keep doing laundry every 2 or three days for no reason other than that I do not have any clean underpants.

No one likes skid marks.

I also joined a sock of the month club. This is something that I have wanted to do for a while, but I have never made the decision to take that plunge. Until now.

I have also made some pretty big life changes and am getting my passport as soon as I get my updated driver’s license.

And I am drinking less and being more present with my family.

I got a promotion at work.

I am happier than I have been in a long time.

And for once in a REALLY long time, I actually have hope that the future might not be so lonely.

Because I have been seeing someone for a while now.

And I have decided to do something that scares the living shit out of me.

Because for once in my life, I have confidence.

Life is not easy. Sometimes things are good and sometimes things are bad. Sometimes we can get through all the junk and sometimes there is not any junk to get through.

But never in the midst of any of that is it actually easy.

And the key to getting through each day is confidence.

We fail for lack of confidence.

If you look back at what I said at the start of this thing, you will notice that I implied that I had confidence because I had started seeing someone.

I did that on purpose.

The fact of the matter is that no one else can “give” you confidence. Confidence comes from within.

So many times, we put up walls against our own potential. It is almost as if we do not want to succeed. We do not want to get those promotions at work or meet that person or take that small step to better ourselves.

We have, for one reason or another, suppressed our confidence and settled for something less.

In one of his sermons, C. S. Lewis put it this way:

“Our desires [are] not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

For whatever reason, it is so easy for us to fall into a pattern of settling. We fit our life into a routine. Our relationships must follow some kind of formula.

That job is offered us, and yeah we are qualified and we know in the core of our being that we can do it. And this may be the job that we have always wanted. But we crave some semblance of stability. We settle for what we know and never take that small step that could change everything for the better.

It is not because we lack confidence.

We have confidence.

We all have confidence.

But we have put our confidence aside to make room for the comfortable.

And the only way to overcome this is to make the choice to take a step outside of the routine and let life carry us forward.

If this story resonates with you in any way, click the little 💚 or share on your social media platform of choice!

Jeremy Zerby

Written by

I used to write about religion. Then I published a short story about a one-eyed black man having a really bad day. Now I'm a life coach.

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