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The School of Life Books

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A Job to Love

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On Confidence

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“We shouldn't be reassured, either, when a partner insists that they have no interst whatsoever in any other human on earth. We should wonder what they are opting not to tell us about and why - and feel sad that we haven't as yet established a sufficient atmosphere of trust for the beautiful peculiarities of the sexual mind to be safely explored.”

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Book:How Ready Are You For Love?: A path to more fulfilling and joyful relationships
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“We tend to focus overly on the externals: a certain sort of room, particular kinds of clothes, a certain level of hormones... But the most important ingredient in encouraging us to take off our clothes and present ourselves without inhibition or fear is - in the end - trust. Trust that a partner has our best interests at heart, that we aren't ever going to be mocked, that there is loyalty and long-term concern at play, that we are with someone who can be delicate with our feelings. Sex itself may be rough and powerful; the feelings behind sex must be anything but”

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“The advantage of sex is that it cannot occur without a high degree of vulnerability on both sides. The physical act requires an almost unavoidable degree of physical and emotional intimacy - which explains why sex can be so difficult between two people who lack trust or are nursing tensions and resentments.”

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“Our setbacks would take on a different meaning. Instead of looking like confidence-destroying evidence of our incapacities, they would much more readily strike us as proof that we were on the standard path to what we admire. We’d interpret our worries, reversals and troubles as unavoidable landmarks, not aberrations or fateful warnings. Confidence isn’t the belief that we won’t meet obstacles: it is the recognition that difficulties are an inescapable part of all worthwhile contributions.”

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“If we were to realise the perilous situation we were in on account of our childhoods, we might exercise extreme vigilance around people we were insitinctively attracted to. We might assume that almost anyone we felt mysteriously and powerfully drawn to would probably turn out to be wrong. We might learn to resist falling in love at first sight- and would be just as careful about swiftly falling into hatred. We would undestand that we needed to fight our insticts at every turn, because of how badly our pasts have corrupted them.”

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“The effective way to please people is not to people-please but to take the risk of behaving in a real way around them, which might well involve a few tantrums - something that which we should ultimately be reassured by and feel grateful to be on the receiving end of.”

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“We don't fortunately need those we love to be sane (or we would be forever alone). We merely need them to be able in their calmer moments - to admit to their strangeness with a degree of grace and good humour. They would ideally be able to tell us, before they have hurt us too badly, some of what is likely to be most difficult about living close to them. They will warn us about their bad moods after work, their awkwardness around their mother or their tendency to panic at airports. Their confessions won't magically remove every problem, but they will hugely attenuate their impact. We are infinitely more likely to forgive someone who has a good sense of what they need to be forgiven for than someone who maintains their innocence against all odds.”

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“We don't have to doubt that there are indeed people whose faces and surface manner imply all manner of enchanting qualities. But we begin to take our first steps towards emotional maturity when we finally accept (with deep sorrow) that, appearances notwithstanding, everyone is - ultimately - profoundly peculiar and, to put it in a colloquial way, mad: distrubed by their childhoods, unable to understand themselves, inclined to error and perversity and in complicated ways serious trouble to be around.”

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