Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Confident or Proud

I haven't seen the movie Ghajini. Only snatches as seen while surfing TV channels rapidly. But there is one monologue that has stuck to my head and does not seem to leave me. I hope putting it down on this blog will help.

It goes like this: I think the Character Aamir Khan plays is giving a lecture (lecture?) to a bunch of students. He says ... there is a very thin line between being confident and being proud. "I can do it" - is being confident. "Only I can do it" - is being proud.

Very neatly put, don't you think?

Another question: Given the above definition, could some one be confident and proud at the same time? If yes, would you care to give an alternative definition?

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1 comment:

Anjana said...

It is a very intriguing question and I am going to attempt answering this one. For one, I think for most of us, being proud is a negative trait. But i think there are two ways in which one can be proud. Pride, as defined here, where one believes 'only I can do it' is self destructive. It stems from low self esteem because all you want to do is prove that you are better than someone else. The positive side of pride would be one, where there is high self esteem and all you want to do is maximise your effort. It is not about being competitive or better than someone else but about bettering yourself. In this case, you are confident because you believe in the power of the self and you are proud because you know that you will not settle for anything less than what you have already accomplished. Sachin Tendulkar once said that he only competes with himself and that to me, is being proud and confident. He is proud because he knows he has set high benchmarks for himself and he is confident because he knows that he can surpass them. So, under your existing definition, pride and confidence cannot coexist. When you say, 'only I can do it', it is not confidence but diffidence.

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