Confidence Gone Too Far
Sister Marylyn Berry was straight out of central casting; small in stature, reserved in demeanor, and joyful—she wasn’t shy when given a chance to express herself, but always in control when appropriate. The first Catholic nun I met, she had a lasting impact on me, beyond the brief conversations we shared over twenty-five years ago. As a non-Catholic married to a lifelong Catholic, I was interested to learn about Catholicism; I was thinking it would be best if our two kids had parents who attended the same church. I was hesitant to go down this path, and resistant of the notion of seeking counsel from a member of the Catholic church, until Sister Berry.
Sister Berry approached our initial conversation with gusto and intent that grabbed my attention. She had seen this before and was schooled in how to get to the point; wasting little time, Sister Berry began asking me questions about my beliefs and faith. I was slow to respond, religious organizations, and devout followers sometimes make it hard to comfortably express doubts, or to pose questions; they tend to project an air of certainty that overwhelms—my perception was the Catholic church, with its dogmatic approaches, represented the height of Christian certainty.
You can imagine my shock when Sister Berry quickly stated, “Michael, in my experience when you meet someone who is absolutely certain in their beliefs, you should be wary. God and Christ’s teachings remain a mystery, which calls for faith, not certainty that you have all the answers.” She continued, “I am not giving someone a free pass, the tenets of our church are based on a belief of God’s grace and the teachings of Christ; what I am saying is that you can believe, without knowing everything. It is okay to just believe because you have faith.” That moment never left me; on that day, I internalized that the answer wasn’t certainty, it was faith. Although I am not a practicing Catholic, I am a better person because of the wisdom shared with me by the sweet little soul of Sister Marylyn Berry.
The freedom that came from allowing myself not to know everything has served me well in my spiritual journey, as things have happened that are sometimes hard to explain; faith has, and I trust will always, pull me through anything. Strangely though, as a young person I wasn’t smart enough to expand this mindset to the rest of my life; I sought to be right about everything and believed I had to be certain of what I was doing, what I said, or the decisions I made; it wasn’t enough to be confident, I had to leave no doubt. Looking back, this brings me a bit of embarrassment; I had all the answers.
I was not alone then, nor were I to still possess the need to be right, would I be isolated today. There seems to be a whole lot of people who are certain and sometimes right; we have a growing society of experts on damn near everything. I understand there is pressure when you are young to stand out, be counted, and get ahead; when you are young you have an energy that compels you to advance in everything you do as fast as you can; there is a lot of catching up to do. However, it is a false chase. I have noticed an interesting thing, for some people, the older they get, the more they realize the world isn’t all black and white, there is a lot of grays; one of my loyal subscribers, made this exact comment not too long ago about one of my columns; I think he is right. The world is way more complex than can be answered with simple, offhanded, make you feel good answers; and isn’t that okay?
What strikes me as worrisome is when we lose the ability to consider something while being uncertain. Don’t get me wrong, to have success, you must have confidence and conviction; it is necessary. But there is a difference between confidence and certainty; I was confident my team would play well this past weekend, but I wasn’t certain; it turns out my confidence was misplaced. What happens when someone can’t discern the difference between confidence and certainty? What happens when leaders fail to see a difference? Do you want to align with a company whose CEO confuses the two; it would be dangerous. Leaders, more so than anyone, should possess a unique ability to separate the two; failure to handicap the impact of decisions because you are certain, could get very costly; if for no other reason, no one can be right all the time. One of my mentors likes to remind me that as a leader of an organization you shouldn’t seek the right answer, but the best answer for right now.
Recently I saw Conclave at the theatre. The movie based on the 2016 novel by Robert Harris, is a suspense thriller which chronicles the inner workings of the election of a new Pope. Like most movies, it takes liberties with reality, but it is entertaining, nonetheless. Fictional creativity aside, there was a moment that stood out and stuck with me; the priest who was leading the conclave was speaking to the church Cardinals about their duty, “certainty is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance. Our faith is a living thing precisely because it walks hand in hand with doubt. If there was only certainty, and if there was no doubt, there would be no mystery, and therefore no need for faith.”
Powerful words with profound meaning. Are we to reject the notion that certainty is the enemy of unity or the deadly enemy of tolerance? I don’t think that would be wise. World history should teach us that certainty has led to dismal outcomes; nations have been called to arms, and many people have died, because people were convinced, they were right, and no rational alternative could alter their path.
I have been thinking about this a lot lately because of the wave of certainty that has consumed our society. Almost any conversation you have is stunted by one person’s over-the-top certainty they are right. Debating, or informal conversations are difficult when people have progressed beyond confidence to certainty. Post election, both sides have concluded with certainty that Trump will either fail miserably or succeed better than anyone ever has; who knows what will happen? Seems to me both sides would be well served to pay attention and see what transpires; if he has good ideas the nation should rally around those, if he has bad initiatives Americans should work to get to a better answer. It is okay if your leader fails at some things; my team’s coach didn’t have a good game Saturday, but he is still the coach of my team.
Remember the day when you could talk to someone and after a while both conclude you didn’t know that answer to something, and that was, okay? I still do, but it is fading; it is fading because now a conversation that is struggling to find an answer can be interrupted by a rapid search of Google. Or worse yet, what if you are relegated to dealing with one of the people in the discussion, who doesn’t know the answer, citing something they read online as the gospel truth, followed by an attitude that any dissention is worthy of arguing about.
I don’t know where this ends; it feels like we are on a path that will lead to something bad; I hope not. Truth is, I don’t know and isn’t that a wonderful thing. There are very few things I am certain of; I know I am going to die, and the sun will come up tomorrow, until it doesn’t. I am okay with that; are you?
