Self-confidence and Masked Insecurities

So, there's this lady who's a lawyer. Is she confident- yes. Is she arrogant- pretty much . Does she get overly confident and arrogant sometimes? Absolutely yes. As I read through the prompt for this week, she (let's call her Lily) was the first person that came to my mind.

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Lily is one who doesn't believe In socialising and as such, everyone is kept at arm's length. This isn't a problem because I'm not the best at socialising either. The real problem emerges whenever she feels superior to everyone. She's of the view that she can do everything better than everyone. Does this bother me? Not the slightest, okay, maybe a bit.

Lily conducts a discussion class that I attend . I believe that discussion classes are meant to be very interactive; people asking questions, sharing experiences but her classes are always very silent till she demands that everyone speaks; whether or not you have what to say. On the flip side, she doesn't hesitate to condemn a person whenever they share thoughts that do not align with hers. Again, this isn't my problem because I basically do not speak except spoken to.

As you must have debunked, I, alongside many other people, try as much as possible to avoid getting into a conversation with Lily because one person would most definitely leave that conversation either with a low self esteem or in annoyance and trust me when I say that person wouldn't be Lily.

There was a time when I had a confrontation with Lily and I left that day feeling so angry. I was meant to be the time keeper for a discussion session. I was about three minutes late and the discussion had already begun which means that I couldn't keep time for that day. I found a spot at the back and sat quietly till the end of the session.

After the class, she summoned me with a voice loud enough to deafen a person and in front of the whole class asked me
"Why were you three minutes late?"

I tried to explain to her the reason why I came late but she kept cutting me off every single time. In the end, she dismissed me arrogantly. "Embarrassed" was an understatement in comparison to what I felt. I was so pissed that I actually wanted to renounce being a timekeeper but a friend helped me to see that I wasn't serving because of her but I was serving because I loved to.

There have actually been many times when she displayed confidence which would effortlessly put a smile on my face. I actually like confident people who always stand their grounds and abide by their standards at any point in time. She speaks, walks and defends herself confidently.

^{Image is mine}

I've come to realise that arrogance and confidence are both results of a person's mindset. The difference though is that a confident person is self-reliant and doesn't bother about boasting as their aura says it all. An arrogant person on the other hand sees the need to boast as they never "feel" satisfied with their aura. Again, it's all about the mindset.

It's quite rare to see people who possess the two traits as it's either you're one or the other. But then again, it isn't totally impossible. This set of people can easily switch from being one to being the other and more often than not, they do not know that they have switched. But in the end, a confident person is one with self-reliance while an arrogant person is one with lots of insecurities.

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This post was written in response to @galenkp's weekend engagement prompts which can be found here. Thank you for your time.

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With love, wongi ✨