For a variety of reasons, I am fond of the plays of Oscar Wilde, despite the fact that I do not think highly of him as a person. My taste for wit, especially a wit that gives a great deal of encouragement to those whose opinions and worth were largely disregarded during the author’s time, tends to allow for an appreciation of an author’s perspective even when that author does not really live up to his ideals. Without going into too much detail, Wilde was not very gallant or honorable by his wife, who divorced him when he was caught in one of the biggest sex scandals of the 1890’s, one which landed Wilde in Reading Gaol (the British spelling of jail) and earned him an early grave. One of his most notable plays was called “A Woman Of No Importance,” which features at least one immortal line: “All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy”, “No man does. That is his.” Additionally, the play focuses on the problem of reputation as a witty and flirtatious bachelor finds his life complicated by a secret, the result of having lived a double life. I would honestly prefer to live an open life, although admittedly reputation is an issue that we all have to deal with, a vastly more complicated matter than honor.

Today was, for me, a somewhat strange day in thinking about the question of competence and confidence. I spent an hour this morning in a conference call related to data management at work, and it was a strange feeling to yet again be a SME (Subject Matter Expert) talking at length and with confidence about what particular data flows would work the best in automating my reporting. This is a task, it should be noted, that I am greatly enthusiastic about, even if it has temporarily greatly expanded my workload in simultaneously doing reports two different ways. While I was discussing the different columns in the different files that would need to be combined together to create the desired performance indicators, the project manager for this particular project was silent, probably a little overwhelmed at the technical nature of the conversation as well as appreciative that things were going so productively. What had been scheduled as a two hour call ended up lasting an hour, which gave me enough time to do the other reports I needed to do and take a lunch, albeit a somewhat late one.

Later in the day I was called upon to help out some of the agents in one of the divisions by discussing some of their pitches. I noticed a common trend among the people I was listening to, and that was a certain lack of boldness and confidence. Now, it might seem strange (and perhaps a bit hypocritical) that someone like myself, who is among the most nervous and anxious people to walk this earth, would tend to notice the lack of confidence of others, but I found it somewhat easy to be confident as a listener with a keen eye for detail and an interest in helping others. Confidence for me, it would appear, springs largely from a sense of competence. This does not mean perfection, but rather it means I tend to feel confident on areas where I view myself acting in areas of strength, which makes those areas much less stressful even where they are busy and sometimes difficult. It does not appear that the difficulty alone is what accounts for my life’s anxiety, but rather the fact that I feel myself operating in such dangerous ground.

How does one, then, increase confidence. The Bible is rather plain that those who are industrious and godly will not forever be obscure, and that God will raise up people from the ashes and seat them with princes (like Psalm 113, to name but one example). Confidence must therefore spring from several sources. One of them is living a life that tends to build on success. It is easier to be confident, and thus more successful, if one has done the best one can to build upon success. There is some aspect of self-knowledge in knowing what sort of situations work well and seeking to put oneself in places where one can succeed, but also there has to be some aspect of confidence that does not rely on ourselves or on fallible people who can and will fail. This is not to say that we can manage a life without difficulties, but that we can and should put ourselves in situations where we are going to succeed, by playing to our strengths to use our God-given talents most effectively and live the best lives possible. Why should we make life harder on ourselves than it has to be? Doing the right thing and trying to live the right way is hard enough as it is.