đ Hey, Abhishek here! Welcome to the 115th edition of The Sunday Wisdom. Each week I share ideas on thinking clearly and making better decisions.
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On to this weekâs essay!
Today, letâs talk about vulnerability. Contrary to its literal meaning, vulnerability is not a weakness. As we shall learn, vulnerability is actually about confronting our deepest fears so that we can be honest with ourselves and, by extension, others.
Vulnerability makes us strong because thereâs no courage without it. Even though it can be distressing to discover parts of ourselves that are fragile, itâs hard to find moments of courage that doesnât require uncertainty and exposure (both emotional and physical). So, the more we become familiar and learn to accept these fragile parts of ourselves, the more courageous we become.
Vulnerability comes from caring. You see, itâs hard to careâreally care! Be it about a person, a pursuit, or a movement. Things donât always go the way we want them to. You lose the race. The project goes down the drain. Your startup doesnât get funded. Your spouse leaves you. Your new initiative is shot down. Your friend is diagnosed with cancer. You get fired. It always hurts when we care.Â
A common defence we often use against getting hurt is preventing ourselves from caring at all. We refrain from giving something our everything. We put up a wall around usâa barrier between our deepest (and most fragile) parts and the world. Maybe the hurt isnât as intense this way. Maybe! But neither are the joys.
Our life isnât full without vulnerability. By saving ourselves from vulnerability, we miss out on a lot of lifeâs richness.Â
Truth is, vulnerability is not a choice. It is the underlying, ever-present, and abiding undercurrent of our natural state. Being vulnerable is being human. To run from vulnerability is to run from the essence of our very nature. Yet, we fight it every day. We try to hide it all the time.
Trust me, nobody is immune to vulnerability. Having interacted with celebrity execs, top investors and VCs, I know one thing for sure. Nobody has everything figured out. Nobody has all the answers. Nobody is one hundred percent certain. Nobody is without struggle or self-doubt. Not even the billionaires, the powerfuls, the successfulsâthe people who (we think) have âmade itâ in life. All of them have parts in them that are more fragile than they are strong.
Therefore, pushing away our vulnerabilities and trying to convince ourselves (and others) that we are more certain than we are is the easiest way to develop impostor syndrome. Because deep down inside, weâll know we are faking it.
But, by accepting that we donât know everything, that we donât always have everything together, we become more strong. This is the paradox of humility. Strength is gained by owning oneâs limitations and not by being overly concerned about being the best of all.
As the wise Tyrion Lannister said, âNever forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armour yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.â
Interestingly, vulnerability has an evolutionary purpose as well. About 12,000 years ago, during the agricultural revolution (when we were shifting away from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a more settled one), the evolutionary process shifted from selecting for traits like brute strength to selecting for traits like vulnerability, compassion, and connection.
Our ancestors who survived werenât those who were the strongest by traditional measures, but those who were most effectively able to share their weaknesses with one another and work together to overcome them. We are the descendants of the vulnerables.
Vulnerability is how a child bonds with their mother. Within just one hour of being born, the child adjust their heads to make eye contact with their motherâs gaze. On day two, they start responding to their motherâs voice. As helpless infants this is how we show our vulnerability and bond with our caretakers.
Vulnerability is also how partners become close, long lasting friendships are forged, and strong bonds are made. Vulnerability is how we survive and thrive.
On the flip side, itâs so hard to pretend that we have everything together. Keeping up this act is exhausting. We fear that when weâll let our guards down, others will view us as weak. This isnât always true, especially if we choose to be vulnerable in front of the right people.
When we open up to others (be it our acquaintances, our fans, or our colleagues), they feel relieved. They think: finally, someone who isnât faking it! Someone who is more like me! They gain the permission to stop their own tiring act of perfection and start revealing their cracks and stretch marks instead.
When Naomi Osaka took a break from professional tennis to focus on mental health, while a small set of people dissed her, the rest came in full support, mostly because they could relate to her.
âIt has become apparent to me that literally everyone either suffers from issues related to their mental health or knows someone who does. The number of messages I received from such a vast cross section of people confirms that. I think we can almost universally agree that each of us is a human being and subject to feelings and emotions,â she writes. âI do hope that people can relate and understand itâs O.K. to not be O.K., and itâs O.K. to talk about it. There are people who can help, and there is usually light at the end of any tunnel.â
When you are vulnerable, it doesnât just remove your shackles, it also removes the shackles from those around you. The result is more freedom and trust, which supports better, more nourishing, and more effective relationshipsâboth one-to-one and one-to-many.
The irony is that all the time and energy we spend developing a personal brand is a hindrance to creating the kind of close bonds that we desire most. Weâve become so good at pretending that vulnerability doesnât come easy any more.
In Greek mythology, the god Pan resided just beyond the village boundary. When humans mistakenly wandered into his space, they would be overcome with panic, fear, and dread. When they tried to escape, even the most trivial obstaclesâsmall stones, little holes in the ground, gusts of windâwould elicit paralysing fear. The victims would spiral down to their deaths in their fear.
Yet, to those who deliberately ventured toward Pan and chose to pay him worship, he was harmless. He bestowed upon his willing visitors abundance, health, and the ultimate giftâwisdom.
Weâve all got our Pans. If we can stop avoiding and running from themâand learn to accept them insteadâweâll also have wisdom.
Interesting Finds
Your brain is not a computer. Computers operate on symbolic representations of the world. They store and retrieve. They process. They have physical memories. They really are guided in everything they do by algorithms. Humans, on the other hand, do notânever did, never will. Given this reality, why do so many scientists talk about our mental life as if we were computers?
Memories make us who we are. They shape our understanding of the world and help us to predict whatâs coming. For more than a century, researchers have been working to understand how memories are formed and then fixed for recall in the days, weeks or even years that follow. But those scientists might have been looking at only half the picture. To understand how we remember, we must also understand how, and why, we forget.
Timeless Insight
Adding nuances to stories makes them more persuasive even though they often become less likely to be true.
â Plausibility isnât Probability
What Iâm Reading
People say that what weâre all seeking is a meaning for life. I donât think thatâs what weâre really seeking. I think that what weâre seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.
â Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth
Tiny Thought
Find people with whom you can share your worst, yet still see you at your best.
That Good Tweet
How to score an interview with an employer who just fired you.
Before You GoâŚ
If you have some wisdom to share with other readersâlinks, books, original thoughts, social commentary, stuff you found interesting on the internet/IRL, jokes, or anything elseâsimply send them to me. I'll pick one, mention your name, and share it in an upcoming issue.
If you wan to read all my weekly essays since 2018, visit CoffeeAndJunk.com.
Until next Sunday,
Abhishek đ