Of Confidence, Falseness and the Idea of Perfection || Acharya Prashant, with youth (2013)

Speaker: The question is, “How do I know whether I am confident or overconfident? One is considered positive, the other is considered negative.” I ask you again. How can I declare a quantity ‘x’ to be positive or negative if I do not know that quantity. I must know something about it in order to understand it as ‘positive’ or ‘negative’. Do I understand what is ‘negative’ or ‘positive’?Do I understand what this confidence thing is? You will go back to your home, most of you, after few hours. When you are with your parents, let us say with your mother, sitting in a very relaxed way, do you really require confidence to speak to her? Do you really require courage to speak to her? It’s a natural, smooth, free flow. You do not require any confidence. Right? But when you have to speak in front of an audience, when you are standing on the podium, then you require a lot of confidence. Right?

Have you ever wondered that why do you require confidence here, and not there? The reason is obvious. You require confidence only when you are afraid. The need of confidence is a sure sign of fear. A person who is acting confident is a person who is very afraid because if you are not afraid, then there is no need of confidence.

Confidence is just a cover up that you need, to tackle fear. What is better: to drop fear or to wear confidence?

Listeners(everyone):To eliminate fear.

Speaker: To eliminate fear itself. So, do not ask me that what is confidence, what is over-confidence. Every confidence is a great fear. If confidence is fear, then over-confidence is greater fear.