Confidence Vaults

Illustration by Meghan Zhang

In my senior year of high school, for my philosophy class, we had to write an opinionated paper that began with an “I believe” statement. If you heard that and you’re thinking to yourself, “that sounds terribly vague,” you would be right. It was. Now most people in that class wrote about real-world, already-existing concepts. Most people wrote about their belief in friendship, fate, science, religion, et cetera. Me, being the overachiever that I was, decided it would be a wonderful idea to write about a concept that I made up myself. Something I called “confidence vaults.” 

It initially sounds a little stupid, and it did when I first came up with the idea, too. I didn’t think much of it at the time. I submitted my paper, got a decent mark back, and assumed I wouldn’t think much of it after that. But I did. And the more I thought about it… the more I realized that it might’ve been more than just a pretentious-sounding concept I made up to get a good grade on a philosophy paper. It might be something real. 

The idea came from a previous memory of mine, taking place between me and my friends on an overnight school trip the year before. We were up way past our curfew one night, just sitting around and listening to music, when we started talking about where we see ourselves in ten years. The thing about my friends at the time was- they were terribly ambitious. More ambitious than I thought I would ever be. They were going on and on about how they were going to be super successful artists or actors, how they would travel the world when they were older, or live in studio apartments in huge cities where they would make all their dreams come true somehow. One of my friends- I’ll call her “Jackie”- asked me the same question. I was sixteen. I didn’t know what I was going to eat for breakfast the next day, let alone where I would be ten years from then. What more, my self-esteem was at an all-time low. I truly didn’t believe I was cut out for anything brilliant. So, I simply told her, “I don’t know.”

To which Jackie replied- and I will never forget this: “I know exactly where you will be, Yasmine. In ten years, I’m going to run into you in the Dublin Airport. I’ll be on my way home from vacation. You will be heading to the Dublin Fringe Festival, where you’ll be directing your own original play, based on your own original script. And it will be a huge hit.” 

I cried. After she told me that, I cried. 

Confidence vaults, as I had described them in my paper, are people like Jackie. They have confidence in you, for you. They believe in you and your dreams, your ability to succeed, your craziest ambitions… even when you don’t. They hold onto the confidence they have for your life, like a vault, until you are ready and strong enough to hold that confidence yourself. Jackie had no reason to believe I would ever become a successful playwright or director. I hadn’t decided that the path of a playwright was one I wanted to pursue. But it was just the fact that she saw a future for me, at a time where I couldn’t envision one for myself. And not just any future, she saw in me the potential and the ability to do amazing, ambitious things. She had faith in me. She didn’t have to, but she did. 

I don’t think that the term “confidence vault” was something I made up just to get a good grade on a philosophy assignment. If it was, I wouldn’t have continued to reflect on it. For weeks, months, and now years. I think, especially for sixteen-year-old me, it was the simplest but most effective way of knowing that I was loved. Somebody cared for me enough that they saw potential in me, at a time when I didn’t let myself think I was capable of anything. It’s almost as if they were making a promise to me- that despite everything, despite me not having faith in myself and my future, everything will work out in the end. And for me, it felt like I had to make a promise to them. Like, if I wasn’t going to try to do the best I can for my own sake, I had to go out into the world and do great, big, wonderful things… for them. For Jackie. 

For the people holding on to my confidence.