#confide

I had never seen Rebecca with a guy before, so I never knew what kind of guy she went for. I spent all that time in my car telling myself I am not a nobody, that I am somebody, and then seeing that guy I knew I had been deceiving myself. He looked like a Disney cartoon prince, and I looked more like Old Yeller. What a shot to my ego. Just as I was feeling sorry for myself, I felt a tap on my shoulder.
 I turned around expecting to see Rebecca. Imagine my surprise when it wasn’t her! But it was a woman, so that’s a start. And it appeared she wanted to talk, and not just ask me to kindly get the hell out of her way.
 “I saw you from across the room,” she said.
 “Oh really?” I replied. “That’s disappointing.”
 “Why’s that?”
 “Because that means the invisible cloak I bought specifically for tonight is a sham. I was suspicious walking out of the store with an empty hanger, but the salesman assured me it was the best invisibility money could buy.” “I always thought being poor and having no money afforded you the most invisibility,” she said as she started laughing.
 “Well then I guess it goes to show that you don’t need to spend money you don’t have just to stand out by blending in. Or something like that.”
 “Something like that,” she said. “Anyway, my name is Dora J. Arod, and I saw you over there and I got excited, because you look like that one actor—you know who I’m talking about, because you must get it all the time.”
 Yes! So somebody does think I’m handsome and in possession of movie star looks. “Which actor are you referring to?” 
 “Not sure his name, but he was in Armageddon, Big Fish, and Con Air.”
 “Oh!” I said, “Ben Affleck?”
 “Ben wasn’t in Big Fish or Con Air.”
 “Damn,” I said. “Hmm well I’m not sure who you’re referring to then.”
 “It just hit me,” she said. “Steve Buscemi. You look like Steve Buscemi!” I don’t remember what I said to that, but after giving it much thought, I will say that she is crazy. I do not look like Steve Buscemi. 
 Steve Buscemi is a much more handsome man than me. ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#big-fish #con-air #confidence #crazy #disney

A hero is defined by what he or she can do, not by what he or she cannot do. ↗

— Damon Throop

#ability #confidence #confident #hero #heroes

Perhaps defining a self begins with simply making the first choice, simply rising up and deciding what you desire, and then methodically, like writing, putting one word after the other until you have created a whole self and a whole life in the process. ↗

— Michele Rosenthal

#healing #inspirational #self-awareness #self-realization #inspirational

He was lovable the way a child is lovable, and he was capable of returning love with a childlike purity. If love is nevertheless excluded from his work, it's because he never quite felt that he deserved to receive it. He was a lifelong prisoner on the island of himself. What looked like gentle contours from a distance were in fact sheer cliffs. Sometimes only a little of him was crazy, sometimes nearly all of him, but, as an adult, he was never entirely not crazy. What he'd seen of his id while trying to escape his island prison by way of drugs and alcohol, only to find himself even more imprisoned by addiction, seems never to have ceased to be corrosive of his belief in his lovability. Even after he got clean, even decades after his late-adolescent suicide attempt, even after his slow and heroic construction of a life for himself, he felt undeserving. And this feeling was intertwined, ultimately to the point of indistinguishability, with the thought of suicide, which was the one sure way out of his imprisonment; surer than addiction, surer than fiction, and surer, finally, than love. ↗

— Jonathan Franzen

#david-foster-wallace #desperation #love #mental-illness #self-confidence

Confidence is a life ingredient that is essential to success and wholeness. It is perhaps the single most important trait that enables seemingly average people to do and become all that they can. And the good news is – it can be learned. No one has to suffer a lifetime of low confidence. ↗

— Steve Goodier

#esteem #growth #personality-traits #self-actualization #self-esteem

Ariel sighed. “How are you not self-conscious about that?” Kitty chuckled. “Hey, I got used to it in a hurry, and I kind of like the side perks. I always wanted to … y’know, be superhuman, do some of the things I’ve been able to do with this setup.” She curled her tail up to take it in her hands. “Now I know how the guys feel, having something extra in your pants tends to be awkward after a while. ↗

— Don A. Martinez

#difference-between-men-and-women #men

Let others determine your worth and you're already lost, because no one wants people worth more than themselves. ↗

— Peter V. Brett

#confidence #individuality #confidence

As long as you look for someone else to validate who you are by seeking their approval, you are setting yourself up for disaster. You have to be whole and complete in yourself. No one can give you that. You have to know who you are - what others say is irrelevant. ↗

— Nic Sheff

#self-confidence #self-esteem #self-worth #confidence

I'm not insecure. I've been through way too much f**king sh*t to be insecure. I've got huge balls. But I've been humbled. That makes you grateful for every day you have. ↗

— Drew Barrymore

#self-confidence #confidence

It’s the fire in my eyes, And the flash of my teeth, The swing in my waist, And the joy in my feet. I’m a woman Phenomenally. ↗

— Maya Angelou

#poetry #womanhood #confidence