The Misunderstood Value - Confidence (Essay Example)

Confidence is the most important value and the one that has shaped me to be the person I am today. I often see my friends and others I know mistake my confidence as a negative trait. These traits may be described as being arrogant or haughty. It has occasionally come to my attention that I take my confidence “too far”. I have never been able to grasp the concept of taking my confidence “too far” to the point where it becomes arrogance. This is because, to me, confidence is simply the belief in yourself. Arrogance on the other hand, is the action of attempting to show superiority to directly hurt another person mentally. Because confidence is a belief and arrogance is an action, I don’t see them as being interchangeable. 

There are many important people and activities that I value. But, I don't use confidence to strengthen those areas of my life. For example, I can’t use my confidence as a tool for strengthening my family bonds. When considering that, as of October 2, my three most important activities that I do are skiing, parkour, and animation. I believe that my confidence has empowered me to better myself in those areas. 

As an athlete of snow skiing and parkour, I have come to realize that not many people truly understand what I actually do. I do what is called backcountry skiing or freestyle skiing. Backcountry skiing is when you go to an unmarked mountain and take a helicopter or snowcat to the top and find different lines to ski. I love this type of skiing for many reasons. One being, the length of each line. Skiing out west is completely different from Minnesota skiing in that a line in any Minnesota resort is at most 30 seconds long. However, in Utah and Colorado, the lines can be over 30 minutes long. The other reason why I love backcountry skiing is because of the fear aspect. Oftentimes, I don’t know what I am getting myself into, so in actuality, it is all about the adrenaline rush I get when dropping into the mountain. On the mountain, I never really know what is up ahead. I have to rely on my eyes, intuition, and skills. Throughout the 12 years I have been skiing, one memory, in particular, comes to mind that grew my confidence. I was 8 years old, when my family decided I could come out to Utah and ski. On our first day out, I decided to ski the hardest mountain on the hill. Little did I know, my dad decided that skiing the hardest hill was not a great idea because the drop in was a cliff that was triple my height at the time. Instead, he took me to a hill that was reasonable for my skill level. This experience changed skiing for me. It supplied me with the confidence I needed that has powered my skiing career to this day. The feeling of progression from one day to the next is the best way to refuel my confidence. As I started to ski harder and harder hills, my skills improved which strengthened me physically and mentally.

The other sport that I love and has shaped me to be the person I am today is Parkour. Parkour is hard to explain because many people have already made up an idea in their head about what Parkour is. Parkour is not jumping from one park bench to another, but instead, executing a flip between the benches is more like Parkour. Similar to skiing, the tricks that I do are dangerous to say the least. There are a lot of consequences with little reward. Despite that though, I love to do it because it is unique and I am confident that I will not fail. I don't have a specific incident that strengthened my confidence, but instead, every single time I complete a trick or line, my confidence strengthens. I am at the point in skiing and parkour where oftentimes I don't have to think about the consequences of my actions. I just know I will succeed because there is no other option that crosses my mind.

Right now, I am an animator. More specifically, a Senior Motion Graphics Designer for Sublime Media. I started animating around 3 years ago when I built my own PC. At the time I was not allowed to play games on it so I decided to learn the Adobe Suite. Once I was fairly competent enough, I decided to apply for actual jobs. I was given many interviews but never received the job because I didn’t know how to present myself. My portfolio was very well done and detailed, I just didn’t know how to explain why my work was significant. The turning point was when I received my first project. My first project happened to be an advertisement for Unilever. Unilever is one of the biggest companies in the world so the pressure was on. I worked as hard as I could but at the same time I was making new connections. My team and I completed the project and my confidence was growing at a rapid pace. I decided to make more connections with other designers and creative directors which is the reason I was given more projects and ultimately ended up where I am now because of my confidence in my abilities.

In conclusion, I do not believe that confidence is unhealthy in any way because it is an important tool that I use daily. Confidence has firmly cemented an idea of who I am or who I want to be. Confidence has strengthened other important values such as hard work, integrity, and authenticity which has made me a more well rounded person.