Life is exactly what we make it.
At 2AM, with hard rain beating down the roof and jumping clashes of thunder, the room around me splintered. There would be no need tonight for Spotify’s John Lennon to save me from that often-suffocating nighttime silence. I was drowsy, but I couldn’t sleep, hungry, but I didn’t want to risk leaving my bed. So in a state of complete irrelevance to the storming world around me, I found myself listening to Brené Brown and her TEDx talk on the Power of Vulnerability.
It was a conversation that delved into Brown’s research on the roles of fear, love, and vulnerability in everyday life. She begins with a story of her personal quest for understanding in her life and ends with a revelation on the overarching theme of humanity in all lives.
As I initially listened, I agreed with Brown. She proclaimed that she hated vulnerability, “I was going to understand how vulnerability worked, and I was going to outsmart it.” I agreed with her there as well, for I too wanted to understand how I could bypass what I considered a shortcoming. I had never seen myself as a vulnerable person. I would always think that vulnerability was a weakness; it was the direct opposite of confidence, and internal fortitude, which I had always seen as the path to success. On that same timeline, I knew there was a great deal of things I was afraid of. I harbored questions and uncertainties that weighed me down- like, would I get into the right college or whether I was constantly sacrificing happiness for academic security.
When Brown went through her ‘spiritual awakening’ as her therapist called it, or “complete breakdown” as Brown referred to it (she had trouble coming to terms with the idea that to settle with vulnerability was to stop controlling and predicting and instead simply enjoying), I followed with thoughts of my own insecurities. I realized how they held me back. In light of all her research, and thousands of stories and interviews and focus groups, she had found that through courage and by embracing vulnerability, these people discovered joy. They believed that the authenticity in admitting weaknesses and love was what made them beautiful. It was fundamental. “…They were willing to let go of who they thought they should be in order to be who they were…” and for that, they lived happier lives.
What she learned, and what I’ve accepted as a mistake, is that in order to avoid vulnerability, we tend to numb it. But when we decide to cancel that particular emotion, we also dismiss emotion in general. As Brown puts it, we “can’t selectively numb.” When I avoided the notion of vulnerability, I also avoided joy, love, and appreciation. Brown was right.
At this point, I’ve essentially outlined Brown’s twenty-minute talk.
As I applied her revelation to myself, there was an inevitable internal struggle. For weeks, I had trouble with the idea that helplessness in some situations was strength. For a long time, I had known that I tended to be an anxious person- at some times, a stressful person to be around. I’ve come off as arrogant in the attempt to look confident and pretentious in the attempt to cover fears. For me there has always been alarm in the prospect of not being enough. And whether that covered academics, or friendship, or even personal relationships, the fear of appearing inapt has always been a driving force in my life. The issue of course, is that whenever I found myself in ideal situations, I still felt consumed with fear of an inevitable possible catastrophe. In giving power to my fears, I ended up driving them into reality. I then began adapting so that I could put myself in situations without risk. No downfall, I would tell myself. But, at the same time, there was also no significant reward or joy. Again, I was holding myself back. I realized that this almost perpetual anxiousness stemmed from a hatred of appearing vulnerable. I had chosen fear over personal acceptance.
The hardest part for any aspect of life for me, what it came down to, was realizing that I am worthy of where I am. I’m excited to be where I’m at in life and I’m happy with the person I’ve turned out to be. I’ve accepted that it’s normal to have shortcomings, and even extraordinary people do. In the past few weeks, I’ve embraced the love that is already present all around me and I’m grateful I have that love. I also realize, however, that there will always be fears and doubts in life. It is what we do during times of uncertainty that defines us. To tie it all up, I’ll use a quote by pastor and author, Charles R. Swindoll, “The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past…we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude.”
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