we learn to associate vulnerability with weakness, a gateway for humility and shame and other unwanted emotions. that’s what we’ve been taught our entire lives: to assert yourself, every man for himself, trust no one with the expectation that in this way, no one will let you down. that in this way, you’re safe; you’ve got it figured out for yourself. we’re taught to protect ourselves from forces that challenge us to look at things differently. we’re afraid to be vulnerable because being vulnerable means tearing down those walls you’ve built, solidified, and maintained to keep you headstrong, because you thought that by concealing it away, maybe, just maybe, you’d be the one who came out on top. the one that got away untouched, unphased, just as you were from the start. to be vulnerable means just the opposite: to acknowledge and allow fluidity of perspective and meaning in your life, and by extension, room for growth and wisdom. to be vulnerable, to love, to dream—all of these demand some degree of risk of which magnitude we are never certain of in the moment, and in turn, in which makes us reluctant to indulge in any one of these things. to be vulnerable means to acknowledge humility and our own human errors, to allow those to be displayed to the world not so that we can be weighed down by criticism but so that we can be bettered in ways that are newly available to us with another’s help. it entails an unknown we are all fearful of because it might mean that those walls are torn down and battered, it might mean that we have to hurt a little or a lot at times, but if it means that we can feel ourselves propelled into a mindset to change our ways if needed, a kind of self-realization nowhere else attained, then i’d say it’s worth being vulnerable at least once in your life. besides, what is anything else—what is trust, what the love in a relationship, what is hope—without a measure of vulnerability? it’s a risk to do any of those things. but at the same time, you learn that the chances you take in doing any of those things—trusting, loving, hoping with sheer abandon—can cultivate some of the most beautiful and meaningful moments and epiphanies. it helps us to keep in motion, keep our perspective fluid as opposed to stagnant. it helps us to push ourselves, to grow, to explore the relationships we were meant to share with one another. all my life i’ve looked at it backwards. it’s nothing like the image of weakness and fragility we’ve all painted it out to be; there’s an unparalleled strength and courage in vulnerability, a certain truth of character and self-worth.