when i was in the eighth grade, our classes held elections of a sort to bestow superlatives on different people. there were the usual categories: "smartest", "craziest hair", "funniest", etc. in addition to these was a category that i won: "most conceited" (actually i was tied with another girl in my class but that's beside the point). at the time i couldn't have been happier with this decision. my rationale was simply that it must be better to be brimming with self-confidence than not. this is what i told those who gave me incredulous looks. i'd say i firmly believed this right up until about halfway through college.
to me, "conceited" didn't have any negative connotations. it merely indicated that the "conceited" person was solid in their belief in themselves. if arrogance was a byproduct, so be it; dealing with my attitude wasn't my problem, after all, it was yours.
it was only after i graduated from college that i began to realize how flawed this view was. my self-confidence had been undermined by having my eyes opened through travel and learning. i began to have the barest inkling of just how little i actually knew about anything. funny how years of education can teach you nothing more than how to actually begin to learn.
so now i'm at a point where part of me wishes i could go back to those days in the past where i was so sure of my every action. even though those actions weren't always right. a larger part of me is satisfied with where i'm going, if not where i'm at. and there's one thing that hasn't changed: my desire to know myself as absolutely as possible. as brutally as possible. in that sense, i'm the same fifteen year old kid who taped "INFORMATION WANTS TO BE FREE" in electric tape to his ceiling so he could stare at the adage every night. confidence waxes and wanes, and wisdom is something that you can only work toward, but the journey seems to be what's important. at least, right now.
