Self-confidence vs. nonchalance

July 30th

What is actually a difference between those two words, and more exactly — between those two states of mind and personality? Seemed like an easy question when I was asked that yesterday. My answer was that nonchalance is natural and might have a negative meaning (i.e. not having a concern toward an important or tragic event), and self-confidence is studious and requires hard work. Nonchalance is something you have, and self-confidence is something you gain.

Now, after thinking it over, I am not so sure my answer was correct.

Nonchalance can happen when your self-confidence has self-confidence itself. Nonchalance requires detachment, and that doesn’t happen naturally. To detach yourself from the events and opinions of people we are surrounded by, is not easy. As people, we crave contact and interaction and praise and acknowledgment from others. To let it go, or push it deep back into a psyche as something quite nice but unnecessary, is not easy and is not standard behavior. That requires training of mind and deep self-examination, which always is hard to do. Only after being able to alter the common human reactions and needs, one can nonchalantly go about life and customarily expected motions and actions. It is not something natural that you just might have as a personality trait.

And self-confidence doesn’t need to be hard work. Actually, if a person is aware of the lack of self-confidence and tries to overcompensate by making all the actions appear confident — that will never work in real life, as we as people can easily sniff out phoniness and bravado. That might work only for politicians and celebrities and religious figures, and those careers are something any normal person should stay away from. Self-confidence comes from work, but not the work to gain self-confidence per se. It comes from working on yourself and molding your personality, from working on the betterment of your life. From working on exploring and analyzing your actions and emotions, and from working on expanding your knowledge. From working on accepting that you don’t need to be seen through the eyes of others, and accepting that you don’t live and exist solely for the benefit of others, but foremost for your wants and needs and your advancement as a person and a human.

When you look at this work, the task seems unachievable and taxing, and unpleasant. That is why most people don’t even make that first step — just to start the journey of self-discovery. But once you do, and start to see the rewards of it, the continuation is natural. It becomes a journey and not something planned and worked on. And self-confidence comes spontaneously from it. It becomes an innate habit of everyday life.