The Dark Side of Confidence
Confidence is a funny thing.
It can help you make a hard call, walk into a room where you do not know anyone, and keep you from overthinking yourself into a corner.
It can also have you confidently driving the wrong way for twenty miles because you are too proud to admit the GPS may know something you do not.
We have all done some version of that.
The problem is not confidence. We need it. Life requires us to make decisions before we have every answer. Leaders cannot wait for perfect clarity. Parents cannot wait until they feel fully prepared. Faith itself often requires us to take a step before we can see the entire road.
But confidence has a shadow side.
It is the moment we stop listening because we have already decided. Questions begin to feel like challenges. Advice sounds like criticism. A warning becomes somebody trying to slow us down.
I have met people who were wrong with such confidence that, for a minute, I almost wanted to apologize to them.
Proverbs 12:15 says, “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but he who heeds counsel is wise.”
That is a hard verse because most of us do not see ourselves as the fool in the story. We see ourselves as the one with the plan.
Humility does not mean walking through life timid and uncertain. It means holding your convictions firmly enough to act, but loosely enough to hear wisdom when it comes from an unexpected direction.
Maybe the best question confident people can ask is a simple one:
“What am I not seeing?”
That question has probably saved more people from bad decisions than they will ever know.
If this made you think, share it with someone who could use it.
#FirstLight #Faith #Wisdom #Leadership #Confidence