Where To Get The Audacity

Why are some people with much ‘going for them’ so meek and unsure, while others frolic proudly through life with no real accolades?

I have always been baffled by this. Personally, I have had a hard time developing self-confidence without something I could point to as justification for it. If someone was confident, there needed to be something allowing them to have it: rare skills, wealth, good looks, a fit body, lots of friends, etc. So to see people that had none of these, act with a surety, pride and entitlement; was always unsettling to me.

I now realize that my view of confidence was incomplete and simply wrong. I was only looking at half of the concept; justified confidence. I was completely ignoring audacity. Audacity is a natural boldness that stems from nothing. Like it or not, it exists and can be a powerful asset. It is an important ingredient within the soup of reality that allows those with nothing to bootstrap their journey towards something. A natural, built-in safety net to prevent beginners and failures from losing permanently.

In-born personality differences explain a lot of this. Ignorance or lack of intelligence explains the rest. People are simply different and have different levels of risk tolerance and situational awareness. But not everything in nature is static. Consciousness allows for tricks that can overpower even thousands of years of programming; there are many examples of humans overriding innate desires and not acting in evolutionary advantageous ways. The relationship between personality and behaviour can be de-correlated, especially where there is no physical force that prevents you from feeling more confident or not. You can choose to be slightly less aware. There is a reason for the common saying: “fake it til you make it”.

To have the audacity, one must simply have it. It is tautological in nature; you do it by doing it. This is important to realize because the idea lies right at the centre of the will and self-actualization; allowing or blocking you from behaving how you’d really want to. You don’t need anything else but the will to act.

The next time your justified confidence is insufficient, stop thinking so much and reach out and try to tap into your own audacity. Your self-image may be skewing reality and stopping you from a new level of happiness, success or wealth that you are ready to attain but blocked from by your own thoughts.

For the other half of the population: if you always feel your confidence is justified, perhaps you are unconsciously relying on audacity. You might do better by investing in more awareness and thinking, not less.