Secure and Confident

By Jim Koury, Editor, Diversity Rules Magazine
© 2013 Diversity Rules Magazine.  All Rights Reserved.
www.diversityrulesmagazine.com

When we were children most of us had a relative sense of security and confidence due to the stable environment in which we were growing up.  Our parents seemed to take care and watch out for us, provide food and clothing and whatever else we may have needed.  Overall, change and the disruption change causes, was minimal, leaving us free to simply worry about those things that children generally concern themselves with.

As we began to grow up and move ahead with our lives, change and it’s disruptive nature began to have more influence over us.  Going to school and dealing with all the peer pressure and issues related to trying to fit in and meet new people creates havoc in a young person.  It can foster feelings of self-doubt and insecurity.  Children can be cruel because they do not understand how what they say and the actions they take can adversely impact another of their peers.  For many, the self-doubt and feelings of insecurity are often times carried through to adulthood.

Clearly I am speaking from my own personal experience, and it may not necessarily be someone else’s truth.  However, I believe there are moments in our lives that we can clearly pinpoint that have had impacts upon us in our later years; both good and bad.

It is sad to think that something someone said or did to us as a child can have such influence over us in our later years.  It is unfortunate since the resultant insecurity instilled in us as a child seems to magnify and become much more onerous as we begin to deal with the more serious issues facing us as adults.  We then begin to hearken back to simpler times prior to the moment where we were “damaged.”  Doing so creates a sense of comfort within and a longing for a more stable time in our lives.

What is more debilitating than the insecurity itself, is the reaction to situations we face that cause us to live in the past and not deal with issues in a clear-headed fashion.  There is a tendency to apply former secure and stable states to our current situations, which may not be the most effective way to deal with a particular issue.

We have to understand that change is a constant. It will cause us to veer off track sometimes and make us feel inadequate and fearful of change itself.  However, we need to refocus our thought patterns to not rely on past truths that may not apply to our lives any longer, and embrace change and deal with situations in current terms.  While we can take solace and comfort in secure and stable states of the past, it is important that we categorize them as nice memories instead of the basis for which we interact in our contemporary condition.

I encourage you to create new paradigms of thought that reject past secure and stable conditions as the premise by which we try to derive solutions to current issues.  Instead, keep in mind that there are new secure and stable environments that will emerge based on the creation of new thought patterns that do not relate to former insecurities and their influence over us.

Yes, doing this can be difficult, as I have fell victim to clinging to the past.  I find myself becoming melancholy and longing for times from my past that were much simpler and easier to deal with.

Alas, the conclusion is always the same.  I eventually lift myself out of that state of mind, refocus on the situation at hand and simply deal with things in current terms in the most confident fashion I can muster.  You can do the same!