@kazani

One of the quiet milestones of adulthood is realizing that confidence and respect can coexist. When you're younger, authority often feels larger than life. Teachers. Parents. Bosses. Experts. You assume they possess some hidden certainty that explains why they seem so composed. So you become deferential. Not out of fear necessarily. Just because you imagine they can see something you can't. And to be fair, sometimes they can. Experience matters. Wisdom matters. Learning from people who walked the road before you matters. But eventually something unexpected happens. You get older. You find yourself inside rooms you once thought contained all the answers. And you discover that many of the people leading them are improvising too. Thoughtful. Capable. Well-intentioned. Still human. I think that's an important realization. Because some people respond by losing respect for everyone. Others keep the respect but finally stop shrinking themselves. They learn to listen carefully without surrendering their own judgment. To admire someone's experience without assuming their perspective is automatically superior. There's a certain freedom in that balance. The moment you stop treating other people's confidence as evidence that your own voice deserves less space.

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