Vulnerability

They say that letting yourself be vulnerable means you are living a full life. It shows that you are living courageously, facing your fears. When you are there in the middle of it though you wonder if people are simply telling lies. You see, in being vulnerable, you open yourself up to a world of pain. If you are supported by your family and friends, well and good, but what if you are being vulnerable on your own. Facing life’s curveballs one hit at a time. Is it worth it? Or better yet, can you handle it?

Before preaching the importance of vulnerability and finding strength, I think thought must be given first to having a well-established support group. A group of people you can turn to and rely on when you know you are in way over your head. People who will listen to your rants, comfort you in your tears and pull you out of your hole when all you wanted is to hide from the world. You see, being strong is a process. Before you find strength, you need to overcome pain and fear. That means you will have to face pain, feel it crawl under your skin, sucking you of your life force. Strength is being able to stand up after that; able to again tell the world “Bring it on!”. But the good thing here is that you don’t have to actually do it on your own. No one expects you to.

While it is good to live life courageously, it is essential that we also establish precautions to be sure of our survival. Living things have progressed through adaptation. The need for connection, however, remains constant among living things. Who are we then to challenge what has been proven by history?

So my advice is to find a group of people, i.e., your friends/family, who you can be yourself with and who will encourage you to be more yourself, force you not to settle and who will push you to reach your dreams.

Find your people and be vulnerable together. 

“Enough. Enough Now”

I know most of you remember that moment from Love Actually when Mark (played by Andrew Lincoln) showed up outside Juliet’s (played by Keira Knightly) apartment with heartfelt placards. I mean, this moment is immortalized in cinematic history as one of the most romantic and easily relatable scenes out there. But do you also remember the moment after? When Mark left Juliet’s doorsteps and he told himself “Enough. Enough now”?

If you don’t, better re-watch that scene. Or better yet, watch the entire film. You will never go wrong. This movie has been a pick-me-upper for me and many others I know. In fact, I have been reading people raving about the movie online.

But we digress. Going back, the phrase quoted above has been my mantra for a few months now. I have constantly been telling myself to get up and get a move on; to live my life and let go of all these what ifs. It is never that easy though, is it? Thinking about it, a person doesn’t really have the right to say “Enough. Enough now” when she has not yet done all that she can to get what she wants, may this be in one’s career or relationships.

In Love Actually, Mark was only able to say those words to himself after he surrendered all his inhibitions and fears and simply told the girl he liked that he liked her — without any hope or agenda. He simply wanted to be true to himself and tell Juliet his feelings. Only after, when all that was needed to be said had been said, did he tell himself that this is enough.

Maybe this is just what we need in our relationships: have the courage to express our feeling and to deal with everything that that would entail. Maybe this is also the reason most people have yet to move on because they know there is something more that could be done. Applying the same logic in our careers, maybe this is the reason why we are unsure of taking that next step, because we know there maybe something that we have yet to explore and learn.

If this is the case, then I guess it’s best that before we say “enough” with our lives and turn a new leaf, we make sure that we have done all that we can with our present situation, without stepping over anybody.

I don’t want to sound cliche, but I guess we just have to “do it”. If things do not work out, at least we are comforted with the idea that we did what we can, with no what ifs left unturned. We only live once, we better live it fully. People will most likely forget all those awkward things we have done anyway. Now, how to build up that courage to do it? Well, that’s another story…