This is my second post about the advantages of being vulnerable, but I'm not making the same point here as in the other one. Plus, since I published the first essay more than two years ago, I'm guessing that most of you either didn't read it or don't remember it. If you want to, you can check it out with this link.
That said, this time the idea for this essay didn't come to me from a class meeting but from Greek mythology, which is a topic I always think it would be cool to know a lot about but also never remember very well. Right now, I've been thinking about Achilles. If I remember right, he was a pretty strong dude who had an indestructible body coating after his mom dunked him in a special river, but she was holding him by the tendon behind his ankle, which didn't get any protection, so it was the one spot of vulnerability on him.
All this about Achilles got me thinking about the importance of human connections (I won't cite studies here, but all the research out there demonstrates that people––even ridiculously introverted ones––need human interactions and connections to be healthy and happy. If you doubt this assertion, feel free to look up the scholarship on the topic and then post the corroborating evidence you find in the comments) and wondering how much vulnerability is the right amount. That is, if we need openings to let others in so that we can be nourished by those connections, why stop at our ankles? Why not open up all the way? If being open and sharing our weaknesses with others is helpful, why not share them all?
Which brought me to think about wound care. If a person needs to expose a soft spot to let people in, what would happen if that person became one big soft spot? Obviously, she'd have all the appeal of a gaping wound:
- messy for others to clean up
- prone to infection
- unlikely to provide much fun
All of which leaves me with this thought: we should seek to strike the balance between being closed to new people and experiences and being needy. What's the perfect amount of opening up and being vulnerable that allows us to invite others in without turning them into our unpaid caretakers? Please share any thoughts sparked by this post in the comments.
My thought is that the gaping wound isn’t as often feared as personal change.
“Listening with the Third Ear,” considering another’s position, or even just doing what another requests that’s not one’s usual routine.
I haven’t heard “listening with the Third Ear” before. Thanks.