Don Your Confidence

Nobody is ever going to believe that I was a very shy person. But my mother used to beg me to go out and make friends, because I had a lot of low-esteem issues as a child. I was overweight and was constantly accused of being effeminate. This put me in a kind of zone where I always thought ‘I can’t do this’ or ‘I can’t talk to people’. All I would do was eat and study. Of course, today, my mother regrets the advice she gave me! I went through a drastic change when I went to college. We had no uniforms, so we had to wear regular clothes and that’s when I realised, I had to lose weight if I wanted to look presentable or I would never be able to make any friends. Along with my clothes, my personality also changed. Though I was still shy, I never had stage fright. I could stand in front of a crowd and give a speech. Even now, I am shy and put on this garb of confidence. I am always acting. Whenever we leave our home, we are all playing parts and it’s only when we return home, and are about to sleep, that we see our real self. I have realised that one simply needs to find a balance between confidence and over-confidence.-Karan Johar.