Tim Ferriss: “A person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have.”

I’ll admit it – I hate being vulnerable. When I play MMOs, I choose the tankiest class and equip them with the best armour. When I’m at uni, I only answer questions I know the answer to. When I’m suffering, I keep it to myself and put on a friendly persona.

This doesn’t always work out. Actually, if I’m being honest, it rarely does. If you harden your skin too much, you begin to crack and break. My most devastating memories have been when I’ve isolated myself from others and imploded.

Overwhelmingly, the most important moments of my life have been when I’ve taken off my armour. Telling my father I loved him before he died; informing a toxic person I couldn’t be their friend anymore; breaking down to my family in a cry for help. It felt disgusting at the time, but the feeling afterwards was liberating to no bounds.

Even here, many of my early articles I felt were too personal to post (see: Managing Imposter Syndrome; Challenges of Medicine; Restless Searches for Meaning), yet by some act of madness, I pressed upload anyway. These posts are often the ones people write to say, “hey, I really appreciated that.”

Perhaps I’m beginning to understand Neil Gaiman’s words from Make Good Art:

“The moment that you feel that, just possibly, you’re walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself. That’s the moment you may be starting to get it right.”