I honor your honesty and vulnerability in this poem. Thank you, and I can relate.

This is a subject I have a lot of reflections on. What do people really feel confident in? As humans with souls, can we feel confident if we are far from Soul or Spirit? And with all that humans experience, for those who want to connect with their Soul and Spirit, is this not a journey that is the most challenging, sharper than a razor's edge, requiring letting go of all the illusions and cultural stereotypes and concepts and people pleasing?

Guided by those ahead of us in this path? How often can we live in this state and for how long? Or perhaps we can feel not un-confident when in beauty or in a creative process or when in love or doing service.

Perhaps it's conscience that lets the kind-hearted, aware of human shortcomings, feel unconfident. Anyway, forgive my tired musings after eating a big bowl of soup. I'm reminded of Alan Watts' book, "The Wisdom of Insecurity" but don't recall the contents.

Maybe we'd be better off if more people were not confident, humble, if we could accept all that we inherited, the remnants from childhood, the farness and closeness to God, and those pesky shortcoming, which we can re-frame as learning opportunities, but perhaps this comes with age. Initially I thought to ask what your poem would be like if it said exactly the opposite. (I may erase this any minute).

But I think like Brene Brown has normalized imperfection-- lack of confidence and insecurity, that are in epedemic proportions in this country, might be normalized, and our striving for more-- the wondrous urge of our saplings to, however gradually, reach and grow into Christmas trees.