"Don't hate me 'cause I'm beautiful..."

This post centres around the topics of conceit, confidence and convincing (pah, that last one doesn't quite "fit," but go with it :D) 


When it comes to confidence, I fall short - quite literally. My height has never been the sole contributing factor to my lack of confidence. But I have always at least been shy/socially awkward for as long as I can remember. and meeting new people for the first time is a personal nightmare for me. However, recently, I'm starting to realize the solution to this lack of confidence - and it relies somewhat on my other "keywords;" conceit and convincing oneself... (I feel like a teacher now... :/ ) 


 

I heard the song "Pretty Girl Rock" by Keri Hilson for the first time yesterday. As a musician, my friends know me for not really paying special attention to lyrics of songs, and therefore can only analyse their meaning on a musical level. However, this songs lyrics caught my attention. They tell of a girl with unparalleled levels of confidence and immodesty, telling others to not hate her for being beautiful. At first, I was in disbelief that someone could be so conceited... then I thought about it some more. I applauded and admired her ability to display an act of arrogance and hope to not get publicly slammed. To realise that with confidence comes a certain level of conceit. 


If that's true, then how would you differentiate between the two? Can someone be confident without coming across conceited? 


The above video is example loosely based on my approach to my conundrum, and the theory goes something like this - if you act confident you can/will become confident. It may not work for all people, but it did for me (at least short-term). If you are a shy person, ingratiate yourself in a group of people with similar interests - start topics of conversation that you know you can talk about. Changing your views and perceptions on certain situations changes your reaction to them. 


Convince yourself of that and people will start to view you differently, which in turn changes your view of yourself.

I know this is starting to sound like terrible advice, and it seems like I'm asking people to change themselves, but that's not my aim. Confidence is what you make it, and if you can act with a certain level of confidence,(without treading over the line to conceitedness) it can only be a good thing. Of course... I'm no sociologist, but this is just my experience and view on things.

Confidence: it's easy if you try.

(I promise to never use another word starting with "con" again... o.O) 

Fear.

Fear: a negative emotion induced by a perceived external threat.

Today is Friday the 13th of May 2011. A day viewed by many as a source of paranoia, anxiety and/or fear. Phobias come in many varieties, from the common arachnophobia - fear of spiders, to the hilarious (but completely understandable - these things are scary as) zemmiphobia - the fear of the great mole rat. There's even a phobia concerning this very day: friggatriskaidekaphobia - the fear of Friday the 13th. 

How people deal and cope with fears differs from person to person. How can one person, for instance, happily touch a tarantula but be defeated at the thought of touching cotton wool? I believe that fear manifests itself as a symptom of hormonal imbalance; One person may be more genetically inclined to develop phobias than others.

However, I don't know anywhere near enough about psycho-biology to comment on that. 

What I do know is that there are people out there who are scared. Scared of things that other people may belittle, or scared to show their emotions to others, or even too scared to admit that they have these fears in the first place. And what happens to those people that are scared of themselves? To look in the mirror everyday and hate the person staring back at them because they find certain aspects of themselves too hard to accept. 

I'm not suggesting that this type of fear is easily overcome. What I would like to say is, however you deal (or, as the case may be, not deal) with fear, it's important to not let it rule your life, or indeed, stop it from letting you become - in the immortal words of the great Jessie J - who you are... even though I've probably heard several other people say that... :|

Yep, I defo just crossed the threshold into ULTIMATE cheese :)

(also - are the cool kids still saying "defo" these days?!)