So this is the start of a new series. I titled
it The Art of Vulnerability. And it's going to
get real surgical, specifically surgical on myself.
This series is really a product of over 10 years
of going to therapy and slowly dissecting myself
apart. It's a result of years of struggling to
acknowledge certain realities about my past,
but mostly realities about myself, about who
I am, who I really am. at the core about what
drives me, about why I am the way that I am.
So I figured an introduction was necessary because
what am I about to do and why am I actually doing
this? What's the purpose behind it? Well, let
me just tell you a few things about what I'm
planning on doing. Now, I'm going to walk you
through. various aspects of my life and how certain
experiences shaped me. I'm going to expose not
only what I experienced, but also my own thoughts
and reflections, both as I experienced it and
how I view things now, reflecting on the past.
I'm still growing and learning. But I'd like
to at least be honest about what lies I have
told myself, at least the ones I do now recognize,
and what I believe, at least at the moment of
this podcast, what I believe to be true. And
of course, things might change sometime in the
future. Who knows? I'm still in the process of
discovery. So the bigger question, I think, for
now is, why am I doing this? Why am I exposing
myself in this way? I want to be clear about
something. I'm not trying to explain myself to
anybody or to draw and, you know, make deep connections
with anybody. This is not an opportunity for
me to connect with an audience or anything like
that. I am not looking for people to be moved
in any way or touched or, you know, I mean, you
could respond however you want or you could be
angry or dismissive. I just don't. care about
how you respond to my experience. You know, most
of the people who know me best or think they
know me best, people who are closest to me, might
listen to some of these episodes and might be
shocked at what I say. They might not actually
have known me very well for a long period of
time, or they might maybe get a deeper understanding
of who I am. But that's honestly not my goal
at all. And maybe it's just me. I do sometimes
feel like an anomaly because I don't know very
many people who are like me and my attitudes
on this. But I actually could care less what
you think of me unless it actually impacts me
in some, you know, tangible way. Right. Like
if it prevents us from doing business where business
will be mutually beneficial, it would bother
me then, I guess. But it's not because you didn't
really. see me or understand me. So where's this
all coming from? It's coming from, part of it,
at least, is coming from my teaching. And specifically,
at the college level, I teach ethics. And one
of my favorite topics to teach is virtue ethics.
What exactly is virtue ethics? You know, I'm
probably, I'm not being careful about the nuances,
academic nuances here of virtue ethics, but it's
a... In my view, it's a holistic approach to
ethics, which does not concern itself so much
with doing the right thing in a given situation,
right? We could argue about, is this the right
thing to do here in this moral dilemma or not?
But virtue ethics is not as concerned with that.
Not that it doesn't matter, but it's not as concerned.
Rather, virtue ethics is concerned with just
holistically understanding how you carry yourself
in your day -to -day life, right? It's about
becoming and living out a good life the best
you can. And to live that good life, you need
to identify and address parts of yourself that
are keeping you from living that good life. You
need to address the emotions that drive you away
from making good decisions. You need to reflect
on how you care for your physical well -being
and how that impacts your cognitive and emotional
self and whether or not that keeps you from living
out a good life. It's basically a way to dissect
yourself in every aspect of who you are and trying
to figure out what it is that's drawing you closer
to living a good life and what it is that you're
doing or feeling or thinking that is taking you
away from living a good life. In teaching virtue
ethics, I saw... need to provide examples of
what virtue ethics actually looks like when you
apply it to your own life. This sounds easy conceptually,
but one of the things I found is that just kind
of thinking academically, you know, thinking
in this cognitive way through the application
felt a little bit, how do you say, lacking. It
was missing something. It was missing depth.
And I think the reason it was missing depth is
that virtue ethics never, I think, in theory
anyways, it's not something that you get to by
thinking your way to it. You can't. We're talking
about all of who you are as a human being. And
all of you, who you are as a human being, is
not dictated by just the thoughts that you have.
It's one part of it, but it's not the whole picture.
So the aim in this project, in part anyways,
is to model this process of reflecting on yourself,
on identifying how our past has shaped the way
that we view the world, the way that we view
ourselves, the way that we navigate the world,
the way that we make decisions. it's a chance
for us to explore how these views that we have
are distorted by those past experiences and how
then we can attain clarity so that we could reason
well, we could think and deliberate well about
what to do and make good decisions, whether it's
about your fashion choice or whether it's about
your relationships or finances or whatever else
decision that you have to make in your everyday
life. Okay, the process for me involved years
of therapy. It wasn't simply an academic reflection.
And I think this is my personal experience with
this, I think, helped shape why I felt a need
for there to be something in the academic sphere
in teaching of virtue ethics that went beyond
just the head -heavy way and approach that you
normally see in textbooks. You cannot think your
way into a good life. It's just... that's just
the reality you can't and in fact this is actually
built into the theory itself right virtual ethics
talks a lot of aristotle anyways um where a lot
of this is coming from for me anyways is you
know he spoke a lot about how you know comparing
ethics to um a craft that you're you know cultivating
some sort of skill in right like you need to
do the thing that you're trying to aim for in
order to get good at it, right? So living a good
life, right? Practicing living a good life requires
you actually practicing it to get better at it,
right? It's not the kind of learning you get
by reading a book. It's not the kind of learning
you get just by thinking about it. You need to
actually go out into the world and do. the virtuous
thing, or at least mimic it and try to get better
at it. Just the same way that you kind of have
to get, you have to actually physically, you
know, fix cars and you have to physically, what
is it, sharpen knives, or you have to physically
fix whatever is broken in your home to really
get a better sense of what works and what doesn't
and what to look out for and how to just make
better decisions about these things. You can't
do it just by reading some books. That might
be a good starting place, but at some point you
need to get your hands dirty. And in the case
of applying this to your own life, the way to
get your hands dirty is by exploring your brokenness.
It's by exploring the ways in which you are falling
short of living the good life, as well as identifying
some ways in which you are doing some things
that are drawing you closer to living the good
life. It's not... a chance for you to like, you
know, criticize yourself necessarily. Rather,
I think I take the kind of approach that has
been taught to me from studying mindfulness,
which is learning to be curious rather than judgmental,
right? Learning to be curious about yourself,
being curious about who you are, about what you're
about, where this is all coming from. rather
than judging yourself, okay? So I don't want
to really promote any kind of self -deprecation
here. It's more a curiosity about your own self.
Now, it could be challenging because you will
hear judgments float into your head along the
way. That's pretty normal. But I think it takes
a little practice, but I think it's possible
to at least withhold those judgments, even if
it's just for a short period, to at least be
curious about yourself. And, you know, I want
to be clear about this. I'm not trying to claim
that I myself am a virtuous person and that I'm
supposed to be some sort of role model for how
to live your life. By no means. I am not a finished
product. I am horribly broken in so many ways,
and I learn more and more about just the different
ways I'm broken every day, just in noticing the
things that I do and how I respond to my daughter,
to my students, to myself. And what I really
want, rather, is instead a space for not only
myself to be vulnerable about my own brokenness,
but I'm trying to give you the space if you're
listening, one of my students, right? If any
one of you are curious and want to try exploring
yourself in this way, I want to at least open
up that space by being vulnerable myself so that
you can try to enter into this space as well.
For yourself. You don't have to share it with
me. You can do it for yourself. But in the hopes
that you can feel more comfortable doing this
sort of exploration of yourself. Because I think
it's going to be necessary to find genuine, true,
complete, full healing and growth. Okay? There's
also a secondary goal. And this actually comes
from a different set of experiences, specifically
with helping students with their personal statements
for college applications. You know, there's something
I noticed when I'm helping students out with
their college applications. I would have these
conversations initially about what they thought
about what they thought were thinking about writing.
And then they would write up a draft and I would
read it. And, you know, I would have this more
often than not, actually, I would have this sort
of response to their writing, which is it. I
get that you're sharing some things about you,
but it feels kind of... It feels a bit dry. It
feels robotic. It feels like... It feels generic.
It feels like just AI could have written it.
It feels like... There's no genuineness. There's
no authenticity. There's not a real person behind
these words. And for a while, I was trying to
figure out exactly why it felt this way, because
I knew that this was the key to differentiating
between an impactful personal statement and one
that's not. It's this feeling of connecting to
the writer. If you're reading a work, that's
super important because that's what's going to
dictate whether or not the reader is engaged.
And the reader is not going to be engaged if
they feel like they're reading something that
was written by AI. They're going to feel engaged
when it feels like there's a real human on the
other side and they could feel that in the writing.
And I had a hard time trying to put into words
exactly what this was. And I think I have a better
sense of what is really happening right now.
I want to be fair to high school students here
because this has to do with just normal human
development, okay, coupled with the educational
system. Your high school years as a high school
student, you probably, even before high school,
right, probably spend most of your time trying
to reach certain goals. And that's kind of the
way the educational system is built nowadays.
It's geared towards pumping out students who
have achieved a bunch of goals, right? Whether
it's titles in a club or grades in a class, right?
We start to define ourselves by these accomplishments.
And so you spend so much time doing, doing, doing,
constantly foot on the gas trying to figure out
exactly how to achieve that next goal that...
You know, many high school students don't spend
time slowing down and reflecting on why they're
doing what it is that they're doing, right? What
is it that you're trying to accomplish? But more
importantly, why are you going for these things,
right? And the answers are usually, when I talk
to students, answers are usually fairly shallow,
right? I want to get into a good college because
I want to get this job and I want to do this
work. They can name me the titles that they want
in the future, right? I want a job in this sector.
I want to do this kind of work. And I ask them
why, and then they say, well, because I want
to help the world. It's starting to sound very
generic already, right? None of it connects to
something deeply personal, right? And when you're
too busy just doing without reflecting on why
you're doing it, you end up becoming nothing
more than a shell of yourself. You end up becoming
nothing more than just a collection of accomplishments.
And that's why the resume ends up, you know,
feeling so dry. And I'm trying to get students
to kind of connect the dots so that at least
in the personal statement, it doesn't, you know,
feel dry in the same way that the resume might.
And so I. realize I need to actually prompt students
to start reflecting and revealing their truest
self. And unless you've actually practiced doing
this, unless you practice reflecting on your
life, slowing down, figuring out your purpose
in life, where you fit into the world, why you
feel like that's your place in the world, unless
you ask some of these deeper questions, not just
like, I like to do this, but actually... Why
do you like to do it, right? Do you like to do
it because you were pushed in that direction
or is there something about the thing itself
that you really like, right? Like if you enjoy
playing a musical instrument, right? Do you actually
enjoy it or do you like it because you're good
at it or do you like it because you think it'll
help you get into college, right? The why here
is what gives us that, you know, the readers
anyways, a sense of, oh, we're dealing with a
human here with real feelings that are stemming
from a real life. that has connected to some
deeper, meaningful experiences that they had,
right? So unless you actually ask yourself these
questions or maybe had these sorts of Q &As with
your, you know, friends at some point with your
peers and had these deep conversations late at
night, if you didn't have that, then this will
be a new way of not only writing, but also thinking
and feeling like this is just, this will all
feel very new. Which is no wonder that when it
comes to the personal statement, it's their first
time writing a personal statement in the way
that I ask them to write it, right? Okay. So
what I'm saying is this, right? Like, look, it's
not necessarily that something's wrong with you
or that you suck at it. I don't like to promote
that way of thinking just because I don't think
it's true. I think it's a skill set like any
other. Writing a personal statement is different
than writing, let's say, a business correspondence,
right? And it requires the writer to be a little
bit more in tune with themselves. It requires
students who have learned anyways. And again,
it's a skill that you can learn. You learn how
to be open and curious about yourself so that
when you're prompted by someone else to talk
about yourself, you can do so in a way that feels
very much like your truest self. You're revealing
something about what makes you tick. Not just
the list of things that you've accomplished or
your specific goals, tangible goals for the future.
Those are all well and good, but where's that
deeper humanity underneath? You're able to reveal
it if you have a better sense, a better understanding
of who you are. And that requires you to just
simply take the time to be open and curious about
who you are, to do that kind of reflection. So,
this series is meant to guide specifically my
students, past, present, and future. This is
for my ethics students who want to see what virtue
ethics looks like when you actually live it out
in real life, or at least you try to, what that
practice would look like on a day -to -day, week
-to -week basis. And to the high school students
that I've worked with and will work with in the
future, who are wanting to write a personal statement
that is actually engaging. And the way to be
engaging is to be authentic. And to be authentic,
you need to first know yourself. You need to
know who you are. So I'm providing these examples
as a way for you to, as a way to kind of prompt
you to reflect on your own life in your own way.
It's not about me here, even though I'm sharing
my experience, but I would want for my students
to hear the way in which my thoughts and feelings,
my experiences, how they all kind of come together
into a more or less cohesive story, and whether
they can practice doing that for themselves so
that they get a, you know, deeper understanding
of themselves about what they come from about
where they're going and why they're moving in
that direction. My guess is that they're all
connected, right? Our present self is at least
in part a product of our past self and our future
self is shaped by what we do today. So I hope
that you can take this series of stories as a
way to kind of prompt your own reflections. And
I hope that you find them to be fruitful. And
at the end of the day, more than anything, if
there's anything I could wish for you, it would
be that you start to fall in love with yourself.
Not judge yourself, not be contentful of yourself,
or not be smug about yourself, but just simply
love yourself as you are. And from there, hopefully
you could find freedom to do, move, and to guide
yourself. uh going forward in the way that you
genuinely would like to go