If meeting our expectations makes us over-confident what can we do?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you.
If meeting our expectations makes us overconfident about ourselves, how do we deal with it? Answer, we all have been given certain abilities by Krishna, and we are meant to use them in His service. So, if we keep the source and the destination in mind, then meeting our expectations won’t make us overconfident, it will make us confident. The broad difference between overconfidence and confidence is in terms of awareness.
When we are confident, we are aware of our strengths, and our capacity to use those strengths in particular situations. When we are overconfident, we think that our strengths alone determine everything, and our awareness becomes shrunk to our strengths, and is not aware, and we are no longer aware of the bigger picture. We are not aware that our strengths are actually coming from some higher source, they are a gift for us, or that our success depends on something beyond us also, that while our endeavour is important, but destiny also plays a role in determining the results.
So, we all need a certain level of self-confidence in order to function responsibly in our lives. If I have to do a job, if I have to take care of a family, if I have to do a significant service in the temple, I need to have some amount of confidence that I can do it. Of course, I need Krishna’s mercy to do it, but we need to have the confidence that we can do it with Krishna’s mercy.
So, without our confidence, even if we have Krishna’s mercy, we will not even dare to attempt to do it. Just like when we decide to speak in public, we share Krishna’s message. We need Krishna’s message so that we remember the right things to say, that we say them with a compassionate disposition, so that the message has a high chance of entering into people’s hearts.
We need Krishna’s intervention so that people are in a receptive mood when they are hearing what we are speaking. So, the effect of our outreach, the success of our outreach depends on factors beyond our control. At the same time, even when the factors beyond our control are favorable, if we are not confident enough that we can do our part, if we get choked with diffidence and don’t do our part only, don’t prepare, don’t show up and think that I just can’t do this service, then those effects will not come through us.
Krishna will have to use someone else as the instrument. So, if you recognize, in the source, our abilities, we didn’t create our abilities when we were born. We may have honed certain abilities by our practice, by our training, by seeking guidance, by learning from books, by learning from others, but still there is some native ability we have.
And whatever we have learned also doesn’t stay always with us. Sometimes we memorize the whole Bhagavad Gita chapter and suddenly we don’t remember some verses. So, our abilities are not ours alone to be proud of.
If you look in this way at the source, and if you look at even the process itself, that our ability doesn’t translate into achievement without some help from something beyond and bigger than our ability alone. And then ultimately, if you look at the destination, that what is it that I want to achieve by meeting my expectations? Is it that I want to feel good about myself? Or is it that I want to ultimately come closer to Krishna and attain Krishna? If I understand that attaining Krishna is my ultimate goal, then I will be able to move forward steadily without letting my success in meeting my expectations make me overconfident. Because I see that meeting this particular goal was not my ultimate goal.
Meeting this particular goal is a step towards the ultimate purpose of my life of developing love for Krishna and becoming lovingly absorbed in Him. So, the good feeling in terms of achievement and confidence that it brings, if it infuses within me a greater determination to persevere more firmly and enthusiastically on the journey towards Krishna, then that is positive. And I embrace that and move onwards towards Krishna.
But if it makes me complacent thinking that I don’t need Krishna, that I am alone good enough, then that is unfavorable. So, by using our intelligence to stay aware of the bigger picture in terms of what is the source of our abilities, what is the process by which the ability translates into achievement, and what is the ultimate purpose of our achievement, by these three things we can avoid letting our consciousness become inflated with overconfidence and arrogance on meeting our expectations.