The Importance of Being Slightly Arrogant
## Arrogance as a First Step
The problem with being passive is that we do not expose ourselves to the world much. In terms of being better, in terms of having people see your work, so you can be open to feedback. In this case, we are using arrogance as a ticket to being better for ourselves. It is not to fool ourselves that we are the best, it is not to fool ourselves to be perfect. **It is the importance of being a bit arrogant in order to expose ourselves rather than being scared as years go by.**
## Courage to be Self-Centered
We can be driven by a lot of things, but most of the time, good motivation comes from intrinsic values. The way I like to start is asking myself “how do I want this to look like?”, that gives me a lot of ideas to pull from the influences I got from the good people and their work. These list of questions brings up curiosity, excitement, and vision of the work I’m doing:
- Do I like this? How do I make it to the point I will like this work?
- How do I have fun in this? If this were fun, how would it look like?
Sometimes it does not work if I don’t have the experience in the field. That’s when I start looking into how everyone does it, how the best people do it, how do they think, what are their priorities.
It’s more of using “ah, if they can do it, I can too” feeling as a courage, and using arrogance to share your work.
## Humility as a cure for the other end of the spectrum
> *Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less. - C.S. Lewis*
If you somehow went all the way to the end of being fully arrogant and stopped taking in feedbacks entirely. It is a good way to anchor yourself in the reality of _where you are_. Sometimes, we overcorrect ourselves to the point of losing our identity because we were so focused on reaching the end of a certain spectrum, in this case, it is the arrogance. Assessing yourself by asking good questions is a way to anchor your identity to the life you want to live in. Some questions could look like:
- Where am I right now? Is being very arrogant the answer to my work?
- Does my arrogance produce the actions I want to ingrain in my identity and life?
