Insecurity

Somebody asked me today what would be the best way to get over insecurity (I'm not sure why he asked me... maybe I look insecure?).  I told him that the best way I knew of was to constantly force yourself into positions where you were doing the things you were insecure about.  You'd either succeed or fail: if you failed, you'd learn from the experience and become better at whatever you were doing, and if you succeeded, the experience would make you more confident.  It's a simplistic solution, but it seems to work for me. Of course, the key is self-discipline and not caring if you get embarrassed.  Luckily, I did so many tremendously humiliating things in high school and college, there's very little left that can embarrass me.

For instance, if you're insecure about asking ladies out, the only way you'll get better is to actually give it a try (although I suppose you could read a book or watch a master in action, but I don't know how much better that would make you at your own, convince-a-cute-chick-you're-not-half-as-dorky-as-you-really-are style).  There's no better teacher than failure, and no better confidence-booster than success. Insecure people tend to think things are "not even worth trying"... which is one of the worst and dumbest expressions in the history of human thought.  Is it really better to not do anything and have a 0% success ratio, than it is to give it a try and have even a 10% success ratio?  Which method succeeds more?

The daredevil Muppet Gonzo the Great would absolutely agree with me on this. Sure, he usually crashed and burned... but who cares?  He entertained, his fans loved him, and he learned from every experience (although what he learned was mostly how to set broken bones and how to straighten his nose back to its normal shape). And come on, let's be honest... it's not easy to defuse a highly explosive bomb while reciting the full works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, or to dance "Top Hat" in a vat of oatmeal.

I was further asked, "What if I'm insecure because I deserve to be insecure, because I'm really just not capable of this?" My reply was that the very fact that you thought you were insecure told me that you do have the skills, and somewhere deep in your head you know that.  If you really didn't believe you had the skills to do what you want to do, you wouldn't have called yourself insecure; you would have called yourself realistic. If you think you're insecure, then on some level at least, you believe you have the skills you need!

I'm very disappointed I couldn't figure out a way to work Kenny Chesney into that.