T he r eader ’

 
 
TEST B
 
Your professor will time you by writing ten-second increments on the board as you read. When 
you finish the selection, look up to see the last time recorded. Then write that time in the space 
provided at the end of the selection.
 
Why do we come to see ourselves as inept or unworthy? If we were born with a confident 
sense of self more or less intact, how did we manage to lose it—and how do we get it back? 
These are urgent questions, because in our complicated world, the demand for self-confidence 
confronts us at every turn. 
Confidence means trust. When we confide in someone, we entrust them with our secrets.
 
When we are 
self-confident, 
we trust ourselves. We believe that we have what it takes to 
accomplish what we need to accomplish; we also trust ourselves not to fall apart if we fail to 
accomplish it. 
Self-confidence can be closely aligned with self-esteem, but confidence as a term is 
usually applied to performance and skill mastery (“I’m confident I can win the game.” “I’m 
confident about my job qualifications.”), whereas self-esteem reflects a value judgment about 
oneself, one’s morals, principles, and spirituality. So it is possible to have self-esteem without 
being confident, or to be confident, say, as a computer whiz, without having an overall sense of 
self-esteem.
 
The concern with confidence is first and finally a very personal frustration. Male or 
female, it is the result of one’s own individual history, one’s own character. It is in our private 
psychological story that the problem of loss of confidence takes hold. And here is where we can 
find its solution.
Self-confidence is so intimately tied to self-evaluation that in order to figure out why we 
do or don’t have sufficient self-confidence, we first need to look at the ways in which we judge 
ourselves. How do we come to believe that we are charming, callous, talented, sexy, stupid, or 
kind?
It appears that we base our opinions of ourselves on two primary sources, the first being 
our own experience and the second being what we 
think
people think of us. 
Ask Donna why she considers herself clumsy, for instance, and she’ll tell you about the 
two occasions, five years apart no less, when she spilled wine at a party. You’ve been at dozens 
of parties with her over the years and have never seen her do anything the least ungraceful; why 
she is so wedded to this image of herself as a klutz is baffling to you. But many of us, like 
Donna, allow our failures and embarrassments to burn themselves into our memories while at the 
same time taking our accomplishments for granted.
[400 words] 
[DeVito, Joseph. 
Messages.
New York: Longman, 1999, p.41.] 
TIME:______________ 
WPM:________