Four years ago, I was stuck.

I was living like shit. Eating, sleeping, studying, and repeating. I

barely had a life outside of high school.
I was lazy, unhealthy, and a little overweight. I had Moobs
(short for man boobs – add that to your dictionary) and felt
anxious in my body.
I was also very lonely. Despite knowing a lot of people
thanks to my extroverted nature, I barely had any real
friends.
I would go out sometimes but with people I didn’t really like
nor trust, hating every moment of it because I knew I
deserved better. I blamed luck for not bringing me the
perfect friends with whom I could share my highs and lows.
Being a person who enjoys social interactions, I never had
problems making friends. However, I didn’t know how to
build real connections with the “friends” that I’d make. And
that left me “surrounded by people yet alone”.
I also suffered from a poor self-image. I always envied those
who achieved great things in life and always that they are
so different than me.
I knew there was something wrong. I knew I needed to do
something because loneliness was eating me alive and my
weight was decreasing my lifespan.
Saying goodbye to my old people and entering a whole
new world called college was not helping me in any way.
Someday while browsing the net, I came across Mark
Manson’s blog (before he became a best-selling author).
That was when everything changed.
Mark empathizes that the way to live an authentic life and
build meaningful relationships is through this special quality
called “vulnerability”.
He defines vulnerability as the act of expressing oneself with
its imperfection openly and unapologetically. It’s the state of
being your true self and living according to what is right to
you, without shame or fear of being judged.
That’s when I became interested in this vulnerability thing. I
decided that I need to give it a try. It’s not like I’ll lose
anything.
Fast forward to today, I can confidently say that vulnerability
has turned my life 180 degrees!
 I feel more confident than ever before.
 I’m no longer in a rush. I’m taking my time and
achieving my goals at my own pace.
 I’m more active than ever, lost weight (and my moobies),
built some muscle and maintains a good body
composition.
 I have made some cool friends who believe in me, keep
me company, and constantly push me outside my
comfort zone.
 I can openly express myself without feeling ashamed of
anything (the fact that I’m writing this article is proof). I
no longer hide from my emotions and weaknesses. I
 learned to embrace them and accept them as a part of
being a human.
 I learned to go after what I want boldly and
unapologetically.
 I’m actively experimenting with myself and trying
everything that sparks my interest.
In a nutshell, I’m living an honest and authentic life that is
according to what I think is right. Not to other people’s
definition of what is right.
A lot of things have happened in the last 3 years. There was
a lot of struggles and painful periods, but I pushed through
them and grew stronger as a result.
Keep reading. We’re going to talk about this in more details.

The Life We Didn’t Choose

Unfortunately, most of us go through our lives taking the
road of safety and convention. Doing exactly as what we are
told by figures we consider to be superior like parents,
teachers, society...etc.
We play the safe game and never question whether we
really like it or not.
If I give you a ball and tell you to shoot it as far as you can.
Then pick it up, go back to the starting position and shoot it
again. You’ll do it a few times, maybe you’ll spend an hour
on it if you’re persistent (and have no life). Eventually, you’ll
grow bored and go home.
If, however, I give you a ball and ask you to come up with a
game on your own. You create the rules. Go ahead and be
creative and make your own ball game. Then invite your
friends for a match.
I bet all my savings that even if your friends disliked this
game, you will never grow bored of it because it’s a game
you created with your own rules. Your own authentic
creation.
That’s exactly the same thing with life. If we live a life that
was handed to us by others and which we didn’t choose, we
will never feel fulfilled and we’ll start hating ourselves for it.
We’ll start to think we’re failures because we don’t win at the
game we were given. We’ll try hard to succeed, only to
realize that we don’t even want to.
For instance, I used to think that success is all about achieving
academic excellence. Being brought up by parents who
finished their education and worked hard to bring food to
our table has influenced their thinking about success and
mine as a consequence.
It was until I finally decided to question my old life that I
really did see the fault in this thinking. I respect everyone’s
view and I believe that education is important for the
development of a well-balanced individual. But I dare say
that after high school, it becomes merely a way to get a job
and doesn’t offer much growth.
Anyways, the point is if we still measure ourselves to a life
we didn’t choose, we’ll never feel like we can be successful.
And even if we do succeed, it will be a short-lived dopamine
high before we start questioning if that was even worth it in
the first place.
It’s time we turn the tables on the game we were handed
and decide to create our own game rules instead.
And that is only possible through vulnerability.

What is Vulnerability?
According to Google, vulnerability the quality or state of
being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed,
either physically or emotionally.
Since we no longer live in caves, we are interested in the
“being exposed to emotional attack” part here.
You see, questioning the safe way and deciding to create
your own way is hard. Very hard actually that you’ll suffer
a lot from criticism, rejection, judgment and even self-doubt.
Being vulnerable means that you understand this and are
willing to pay the price to get to where you want.
Let me repeat that again, vulnerability is being okay with
getting rejected, ridiculed, judged, and in some cases,
accused of madness.
Anything in life that is worth doing involves being exposed to
emotional pain.
Standing up for yourself leaves you exposed to ridicule and
judgment.
Asking your crush out leaves you exposed to rejection and
heartbreak.
Sharing your secrets and feelings with your friends leaves
you exposed to envy and disloyalty.
All those are painful emotions. But the acts are worth it.
If you don’t stand up for what you believe, you’ll be a
doormat and will never get the respect you want.
If you don’t ask your crush out, you’ll waste a lot of time
fantasizing about someone who may or may not reciprocate
your feelings.
If you don’t share yourself with your friends, they’ll never trust
you enough to become your real buddies (a secret I learned
the hard way).
All those are vulnerable acts because you are ‘exposed’ to
emotional pain whenever you do them.
The more worthwhile the act is, the more vulnerable it will
leave you, thus the greater the exposed pain and growth.
More worthwhile = more vulnerable = greater pain = greater
growth
So, how can vulnerability help you create an authentic life?
Any authentic life involves around doing activities that are
authentic to the person involved. By their nature, authentic
acts are vulnerable acts because they require that you risk
embarrassing yourself and looking stupid to others whenever
you do them.
An authentic life has 3 main areas to work on:
Authentic Lifestyle
Authentic Action
Authentic Communication
Let’s go through each one of them in more details.
Authentic Lifestyle
It’s literally anything that can make you unique and stand
out from the masses.
Your hobbies, the clothes you wear, the food you eat, your
music taste, whether you watch Game of Thrones or
Chernobyl, your favorite sport, your job/study field, your
ambitions and dreams, your opinions about the world, your
philosophy, the friends you hang out with, the books you
read, your volunteering experience, ...etc.
If you have little to no care for the above things (apart from
the GOT or Chernobyl thing which you don’t need to care
about – I don’t), then you really got some work to do.
What are your hobbies? Photography? Guitar? Maybe rock
climbing? How about camping? Take your time to explore
various activities. The possibilities are endless.
If you think there is some area that needs improvement, start
searching for ways to improve them. Use the internet to your
advantage (Quick fact: do you know that you can use the
internet to browse websites other than
FB/Instagram/Youtube? A lot of people don’t know that).
Remember that those things are vulnerable because you’re
challenging yourself to grow and learn more about the
world around you. You’re challenging your limiting beliefs
and replacing them with new healthy ones.
Authentic Action
This is where you’ll actually build your vulnerability muscle
(aka courage).
This area includes activities that get you out of your comfort
zone and expose you to great emotional pain.
It may include:
 Asking your crush out (and accepting her/his response
graciously and moving on rather than wasting time in
fantasy).
 Cutting off bad relationships and toxic people
 Forcing yourself to socialize more and meet new people
 Joining a gym and embarrassing your way out of the
badly-designed machines (currently happening to me)
  Taking leadership roles within your
club/organization/job...etc
 Exploring a new career/study field
 Starting a business (if that’s what you’re into)
 Talking in front of a group of people
Basically, it’s about going boldly after what you want.
Remember that your vulnerability/courage muscle is just like
a real muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it becomes.
So start small and keep gradually challenging yourself and
exploring your limits.
Authentic Communication
Here comes the hardest part of all the three.
What do I mean by Authentic Communication?
Have you ever felt so self-conscious when talking to
someone that you start to stutter or in an attempt to not
embarrass yourself by saying something stupid, you don’t say
anything? We all have experienced that. Especially when
talking to the girl/guy you like, it can intensify and become
real torture! You start to question where has your personality
been when you needed it the most or why are you such a
failure you can’t talk properly to the person in front of you?
On the other hand, have you ever experienced having a
spontaneous conversation with someone that words just flew
out naturally without you caring about a thing? You know,
when you felt completely present and your head was
minding its own business and not nagging at you in the
background? You joked, teased, played, and expressed
yourself authentically when you were in this state.
What is the difference between the two scenarios? It’s the
way you think about the situation.
In the first scenario, you were putting the other person on a
pedestal and you worried if you can’t impress him/her. You
started to see the conversation in a logical way using your
brain to tell you what’s the next best thing to say/do in
order to come closer to your goal of making a good
impression and avoid getting rejected.
In the second scenario, you let your creative side take care
of everything. You didn’t worry about “conquering the
conversation” or “scoring points” because you didn’t see it in
a logical way. You didn’t worry about getting rejected or
saying something weird. You were just being yourself, saying
what’s on your mind even if it may expose you to getting
rejected (again, being vulnerable), Ironically, this would
actually make you leave a far better impression than you
would if you take it logically.
Human relationships are based on emotions. How you make
people feel is far more important than ‘what you bring to the
table’. There is a reason why a comedian has more followers
and fans than, say, a scientist.
Emotions aren’t logical. They are to be felt and not to be
processed. Thus it doesn’t make any sense to try to build real
life-long relationships if you brain your way to people’s
hearts.
The only way to attract new relationships and nurture
existing ones is through emotions.
You elicit emotions in other people by truly expressing
yourself, openly, unashamedly.
By becoming spontaneous and uninhibited, you open doors
to amazing conversations that would never occur if you tried
to plan your words.
Showing who you are, exposed, uninhibited, is the only way
to truly change your relationships and life in general.
By becoming good at expressing your emotions, you learn
how to elicit emotions in the people of your life and
strengthen your relationships as a result.
Now, how do you express yourself openly?
Again, by accepting that rejection, ridicule, and judgment
are inevitable.
You know the classic truth “Not everyone will like you”. I’d
like to take it further and add “And that’s okay!” to it.
Transitioning from a people pleaser who is always agreeable
to someone who is unpretentious and says what’s on his mind
is hard at first. Because you got to give up on the need to be
liked by everyone. No one, apart from little babies, is adored
by everyone. You got to shove this fact into your skull and
live with it.
But it’s not bad, really. When you express yourself fully and
without inhibitions, you say to the world “I’m an amazing
person, as unique as a unicorn. Take me or leave me, I’m fine
anyways.” This will result in one of these two scenarios:
 Some people will dislike you (inevitable)
 A lot of people will love you so damn much
Instead of being a people pleaser and end up on a third
scenario where “no one loves you nor dislikes you”, you’re
setting yourself to meet your own people, those who are
proud to be with you and enjoy your company to the fullest.
I am glad I made the effort to find my people. I made some
enemies along the way but again, the result is worth the
price.
So be that unique guy/girl, say weird things, ask stupid
questions, ask deep questions, tease and be playful with
others. You’ll filter those who are so boring to appreciate
your uniqueness and keep those who will love you until the
end.

Final thoughts
If you’re reading this, that means that you sticked through this
long text, Thank you very much!!
As we’ve seen now, the true path to an authentic life is
through vulnerability.
Though not everyone is courageous enough to get to that
path, you are free to take a deep look at your life and
decide if you really want to go against the current and start
designing new rules for your game.