Confidence or Arrogance?

More and more, I am convinced that there is a serious difference between confidence and arrogance. I am even more convinced that we are confused about which is which.

For the purpose of this post, confidence is defined as "a feeling of self-assurance arising from one's appreciation of one's own abilities or qualities." Some synonyms include self-assurance, assertiveness, and boldness. Arrogance is defined as "having or revealing an exaggerated sense of one's own importance or abilities." Some of the synonyms we can use for arrogance or arrogant include vain, pompous, or conceited.

I believe in a healthy amount of confidence. Some may refer to it as faith. Perhaps the two are very similar. Another definition, for the sake of clarity, offers an understanding of the difference between faith and confidence, which says faith is "complete trust or confidence." I would dare say that our trust or confidence should be placed very carefully, using wisdom and good common sense.

In my own humble opinion, it seems that arrogance is something that is out-of-control in this world. It seems that arrogance lacks humility,  which is a characteristic of modesty, something that is very hard to come by in this immodest culture in which we live. This culture tends to lean toward being very vain and egotistical. I am often overwhelmed by the narcissistic people I seem to encounter on a daily basis. I often wonder whatever happened to humility.

We need confidence. We must have confidence to live from day to day, even from one minute to the next. We must have the confidence to believe that the chair we sit in is going to hold us, or that the building we are in is going to remain standing, at least while we are in it. We must have confidence that the coffee maker will give us the fresh hot cup our mouths are craving, or that the vehicle that we are driving is going to get us where we are headed.

It appears that the culture is fascinated by people who are overly-confident, arrogant, narcissistic even, giving young people the impression that it is more advantageous to be this way rather than being humble and modest. I am convinced that it is this very thing we call arrogance that is contributing to this corrupt and nefarious society. I'll have more to say later.