April 23

After a conversation with someone who has spoken encouragingly to you, you often feel steadier. A moment ago the worry was large; now it seems manageable. By the next morning, sometimes little of that is left. The confidence evidently hung on their voice, and without it the whole thing slumps again.

That is no argument against the conversation. No one stands entirely without others. Much of what you rely on today was once said to you by someone for you to repeat. The difference lies elsewhere: someone else's sentence can support you only as long as it is being spoken. Or, over time, you can think it yourself, in your own words, and even on days when you don't much like it.

From outside the two are hard to tell apart, and from inside not right away. Whether a confidence belongs to you is something you rarely notice at the moment someone gives it to you. More likely later, when you need it and there is no one there to repeat it.

Sometimes you then find that you have long been saying a sentence differently from the person you got it from.