On Being Vulnerable.

Life is hard. We know this is true for ourselves and those close to us. It is true for everyone.

And yet, our culture is attuned to some strange manipulated distortion field of “everything is great!” when we talk about ourselves. We put on cheery exteriors because who wants to hear about all the pain and heartache of our lives?

Maybe social media exacerbates this a tad ;-). What with the always-constantly-keeping-up-with-the-joneses-or-our-perception-of-how-their-lives-are-just-so-awesome. That and our culture of celebrity worship. These forces give us manufactured glimpses into other people’s lives that make them seem all so perfect. So maybe we feel the need to conform.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m incredibly blessed. I’ve got an amazing wife and the most perfect 2 1/2 year old daughter one could imagine.

But life is hard. And it is hard to talk about that side of things.

Behind the veneer we share, lies the truth of the entrepreneurial struggle. Lies the pain of sick family members. The challenges of relationships gone wrong. People who take advantage of us. Mistakes.

We know this about ourselves and our close friends, and yet somehow we still feel uncomfortable being honest about the hard stuff. Or at least I do.

Lately, I’m starting to get better about “being real” about these harder things. Telling people about how hard it is that my mom is sick and probably never getting better. How the pressure of being a good dad and husband added to the attempt at building something new as an entrepreneur is sometimes hard to bear.

Coming to grips with our own human frailty isn’t an easy thing. Admitting our pain is almost like admitting our weaknesses, only maybe worse. Growing up we were taught to be tough. To shake it off. To man up.

So maybe that is where it comes from too. Beyond the social media influence, from somewhere within. A place where we ignore the pain.

I’m really not sure, and I’m also not sure what the point of sharing this is besides maybe to say that I think being vulnerable is better. Even if it is harder and more uncomfortable, what I’m finding as I become more able to talk about these things that somehow the pain becomes both more real but also more natural.

Maybe being human — admitting our limited way of being and the pain and challenges of our daily lives — is at first harder and then easier. I’m not quite sure.

Because at the same time that I’ve become more comfortable with this kind of sharing, I’ve also been rediscovering a kind of Grace. A form of spirituality and faith that is more ease. More constant and ever present. Almost like a magic gift all around us.

It seems strange that these two would be connected: pain and grace. But maybe it is through acceptance that we find both.

Through an honest sharing and acknowledgement of our own pain and frailty, maybe that is where we also find the power of Grace there with us all along. Through that same acceptance and becoming more ourselves, maybe we somehow at the same time find the divine in us too.

I’m really not sure.

But I’m thankful for you. Reading this. And for the gifts of everyday that do outweigh the hard things.

And I pray for the courage to keep going through the pain, to do the important work we still have left before us. We have a lot to do! :-)