Comfort is not Confidence

BSC was the land of confidence. From the moment I strutted onto campus freshman year, friends were made, classes aced, clubs joined. I was cast in shows; I even scored a summer internship. Life was good. Worries trivial.

But it was too good. It was easy. I was bored and needed friction, sharp and hot like match striking rock.

My solution: study abroad. I wanted to travel. BSC had an exchange program with UB. Why not? It’ll be great. I’ll be great. Look at me at BSC, living life as though I invented the word confidence and taught the world its fierceness.

So I travelled, straight across the globe, and I did strike rock—body-slamming into rock bottom.

It was not great. I was not great. UB was not BSC.

For the first month and a half, I existed in a semi-depression. I was miserable, lonely, scared, homesick and constantly crying—all feelings that I had never before experienced and was at a loss of how to handle. At 20 years old I was reduced to a frightened, trembling child who wanted nothing more than to run home to Mommy and Daddy.

BSC had been my tailor-made, velvet glove, and I had slipped it on, effortlessly. UB was me being tossed onto a street corner to ask directions from strangers to the nearest thread and needle shop to make my own glove. But I didn’t know how to sew, and I kept messing up, screaming inside, "Just hand me a damn glove!" as life had always done. Eventually, I got so frustrated I threw away the needle. I threw away the thread, and said. “Screw it.” Because I didn’t need a glove.

Because comfort is not confidence. Comfort is tied to a specific person or place. So what happens when those ties break or unravel or are purposefully cut like me leaving BSC? In my case, I ended up stranded, defenses ripped away, totally vulnerable, and directionless. Confidence should not be something that can be left behind like a childhood home. Confidence should be something carried within. And from the hard darkness of rock bottom, I discovered that that is exactly where confidence resides. Because confidence, I learned, is faith.

There is faith in a higher power; there is faith in others; but there is also faith in yourself. Faith is believing in something that cannot be proven, believing in something that none of the five senses can grasp. And sometimes that thing that cannot be proven or grasped by the world or, more importantly, by you is you—what you can decide, what you can do, and where you can go. And that faith is what sees you through, providing strength and support when the elements of confidence—certainty, assurance, trust, and courage—fail or seem nonexistent.

And sometimes your faith—your confidence— will fail. Sometimes it will seem nonexistent or feel too far away, or you will forget that you ever held it. But the strongest faiths battle wars of doubt.

But that is why it is faith. It can be doubted. It can be frustrating. It can even be lost. But you control it. You carry it. And if lost, you can find it again. Faith is tied to no person and to no place but you. Faith in yourself is true confidence.

I am a month into my second semester at UB, and I do not want to leave at the end of the term. I have created a life here with people who I am excited to see every day and who I do not want to be an ocean away from next year. The beginning of last semester was hard, painful even, but it was worth it, even if it did not seem so at the time. I cried when I arrived, and I will cry when I leave. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

P.S. The biggest confidence rush I know is walking down a virgin city street. Do I know where I am going? No. But I will figure it out. Do I know any of these people? No. But I can ask them for directions. Have I ever been here before? No. But I am here now, and I will be okay.