Enriched by Words

Transparency & Confidence

For someone like me, with one of those convoluted onion-layered personalities, one life long quest is for authenticity…transparency…to fully know ourselves and allow others to fully know us.  With confidence and encouraging feedback, the ongoing task takes work, but is doable.

And what if you are shy, insecure, and have doubts about who you really are?  That makes the ongoing task an uphill struggle with rocks in your pockets.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the benefits of transparency, of being our authentic selves at all times.  I would like to think I have the confidence to actively pursue that clearness.  I would like to think that others could read my words and tell a lot about who I am on the inside (and they probably can).  Don’t you wish the same?

While community has come so far on the internet, there’s still a glass ceiling.  Is sharing about a painful struggle perceived as whining unless you couch it in humor or triumph at the end?  Is talking about your failures considered bragging of a sort, or parading your ineptitude to the public?  What about asking for help?  Are we then perceived as needy, not too bright, or grasping?

Jumping over those conclusions, assumptions and fears requires a lot of confidence.  I think it also requires some experience with positive feedback upon opening up that way.

Of course we all want to feel and be perceived as confident and put together.  That’s the nature of fitting into society.   Of course we would like to live without masks and interact with authenticity.  Is it safe?  Will we be rejected if people see who we are on the inside?

It is a question for writers also.  Our best work comes from that place of authenticity when something of our soul is poured out onto the page.  How transparent are we willing to be with our pens, knowing that some discerning reader might guess more than we intended to reveal?

The answer is in a combination of things.  Confidence is, of course, important.  So is the decision to pursue interactions and relationships with transparency.  The most important element is trust.

Trust that you have something to say.  Trust that you can learn from the feedback you receive.  Trust that authenticity will win you true friends over the fair weather kind.  Trust that your writing will find the readers who will love it, nurture it, and understand it.

And maybe we can trust that everyone else out there is just like us…human, with faults and failings, willing to gain confidence for themselves from our openness.

I sure hope that is how it works.  Don’t you?

5 comments | Add One

Leave a Comment