CONFIDENCE – BY DON MITCHELL QC – Speech to the Albena Lake-Hodge Comprehensive School Assembly on 10 March 2005
What an honour it is to have been invited to speak to the pupils of this
fine school this morning! It is not
often that an old grey-head like me gets a chance to exchange ideas with such
bright young-people as you are. I really
appreciate this opportunity, and thank those who invited me, and you all for
turning out in such numbers.
I know the sun is blazing hot, and I shall not keep you long on the
Ronald Webster Park this morning.
My talk is on the subject of Confidence.
And it will last for 7 minutes.
There is a lot that I could say to you about Confidence. I could talk to you about Confidence
Tricksters. About how you should look
out for those who try to gain your confidence, only to take advantage of you,
and to rip you off. I could warn you
about the dangers of Over Confidence.
About what happens when you have a misplaced belief in your ability to
do something that you are not prepared to handle. I could speak about how not to be too
disappointed when your confidence in the adults around you is occasionally let
down. It will happen from time to time
that someone whom you trust turns out to be worthless. We shall have to try to learn to accept that,
and to strive to ensure that that does not happen to us.
Instead, I want to talk to you about Self-Confidence.
There are in this world two types of people: those with Self-Confidence and those without
it.
There are two types of Self-Confidence:
there is the one we develop, and there is the one we pretend to
have. Sometimes it is good to pretend to
be more confident than we really are.
But, the most satisfying form of confidence is the confidence that comes
of practice and effort.
We are not born with confidence.
We have to develop it. I want you
to grow into self-confidence.
Self-Confidence comes with knowledge:
awareness of our abilities and of our limitations; knowledge of ourselves and of others around
us; constant study of all the learning
and experience of others that can save us from unnecessary errors and
hardships.
School-learning does not give us knowledge. If we are lucky, school gives us techniques
for learning, and practice in acquiring knowledge.
After we leave school, much of what we learned we will have to put aside
and forget. But, if we do not learn in
our school years, then we fail step one in developing confidence. Step one is learning to learn; learning to love and acquire knowledge. When our teacher makes us memorise a poem and
recite it from memory, it is not that that poem is important. It is the skill of memorising that we are
developing that will prove to be invaluable later in life.
With knowledge comes confidence.
When we have thoroughly studied a school subject, we are confident we
will pass the exam. When we have
regularly practised our serve and our backhand, we will triumph in the tennis
tournament. By contrast, when we spend
the whole day looking out of the class-room window and day-dreaming, we fret
and worry with uncertainty. When we fail
to do the weekend class assignment, we are filled with trepidation about
turning up for school on the Monday. I
know, because that is what constantly happened to me. I am sure it happens to you too.
With knowledge comes maturity.
Confidence comes with preparation for life. Confidence does not come with years or
age. We are surrounded by grown men and
women who have no confidence, who are perpetually immature. We know them by their actions. They are the wife-beaters and child
abusers. They sell drugs instead of
getting a job. Some of them even use
religion as a shield for their wrong-doing.
They hide behind their position in society to do harm to those who
depend on them. They find security in
their imagined self-importance. These
adults are yet immature. Their main
weakness, we can say, is their lack Self-Confidence.
It is normal not to be too self-confident when we are young. When I was your age, I was so shy that, when
evening visitors came to my parent’s house, I hid from them under the bed. I didn’t come out until after they had
left.
At nights, I used to lie in bed and stare up into the darkness of the
ceiling begging the Almighty to just give me one little glimpse at what the
future held for me. Night after night, I
lay there, fretting and tossing and turning, worrying at what was to become of
me. No matter how I prayed, no answer
came.
I was always aware that so many of my class-mates were much brighter than
I was. I was always in the bottom half
of class. Eventually, I developed a
plan. If success was to come to me in my
life, I could not expect it as of right.
It would come because I had worked hard for it. If all around me were twice as bright, then I
would keep up by working twice as hard.
If they read one book a week, I would read two books a week. If they walked two miles a day for exercise,
I would walk four. If they studied for
four hours in the evening, I would study for eight hours.
For years, I struggled to come to terms with the demands of my job and
profession. I strove constantly for
perfection. I was never sure that what I
was doing was the right thing, or the best I could achieve. Most of the time, I fell short in the
Self-Confidence field. The only remedy,
I felt, was to set higher and higher targets for myself.
If I can urge you to do one thing, it is this. Never be Self-Satisfied. Never be vain and over-bearing. Do not be over-confident in your abilities. But, neither be thoughtless and careless with
your future. Seek out a good
career. Get yourself qualified in
whatever it is. It does not matter what
you choose. There is always room for you
at the top.
Except for those few of us born with a silver spoon in our mouth, life
will never be an easy road. Success, and
the final attainment of self-confidence, will require self-discipline on your
part. Do not let mischief-makers cause
you to deviate from your determination to make yourself the best at whatever
life lays out before you. Strive always
for perfection, unattainable as it appears now. Burn the midnight oil. Work twenty-five hours a day to improve. In time, with the gaining of experience in
life, and with the love and assistance of friends and family, will come rest
and peace of mind. Call it
Self-Confidence. Whatever it is, it comes
after the sweat and the tears.
