Vulnerability Isn’t a Virtue
There’s a very polished way to talk about vulnerability.
And most of the time, it lies.
These days, vulnerability is framed as courage.
As a conscious choice.
As something you do once you’re ready.
That hasn’t been my experience.
I’m not vulnerable when I’m strong.
I’m vulnerable when maintaining the armor costs more than taking it off.
There’s nothing noble about that.
It’s energy management.
For a long time, I confused control with maturity.
Being able to explain everything.
Soften conflict.
Turn confusion into a presentable narrative.
It works — until it doesn’t.
At some point, the “put-together” version of you starts demanding daily maintenance.
You edit what you feel.
Negotiate what you say.
Swallow what hurts because you don’t yet have clean language for it.
That’s usually when vulnerability shows up.
Not as courage.
As structural fatigue.
Being vulnerable in those moments doesn’t automatically bring people closer.
It doesn’t heal.
It doesn’t guarantee understanding.
Sometimes it just leaves you without any defenses at all — with the world, and with yourself.
But something shifts when you stop protecting yourself all the time.
You stop spending energy trying to look whole.
Vulnerability doesn’t fix the problem.
It interrupts the performance.
And maybe that’s its only real value:
not adding anything —
just removing the constant effort of pretending you have control.
Not every day is a day to open up.
Not every pain needs to become language.
Not every silence is repression.
Sometimes vulnerability is simply this:
stopping the explanations.
stopping the justifications.
stopping the translation of what you feel into something digestible.
If today you can’t expose yourself, that’s fine.
If today all you can do is not lie to yourself, that’s enough.
Some truths don’t want a stage.
They want rest.
