Nature vs. Nurture

Is your level of confidence determined by your genes, or is it a result of your upbringing and environment?

Coherent, intelligent arguments have been made for either side.

Let's look at this from both extremes and see where that leads us:

Presume for a moment that ALL that we are as humans is predetermined by our family inheritance via our genes; if that's true then that means we have no real choice or options in how we are - it's already predetermined and there's not a darn thing you or I can do about it.

On the other hand, presume for a moment that who we are is NOT predetermined and that our present-day attitudes, behaviors, values and beliefs CAN be changed or updated or adapted to fit better with who we are today or want to be tomorrow: if that's true, then that means we have choices and options, we can change ourselves to suit our desires.

Granted, that little mind-experiment we just did was looking from the extremes - perhaps our level of confidence is the result of a mix of nature and nurture - but take a look again at the choices above: which give you more power, more flexibility, more choice? Which empowers you more? Which approach gives you the ability to have more confidence, should you so desire?