Embracing Vulnerability

Sociology can be defined in many different ways, "the study of human society and social behavior," " the study of doing things together." Therefore to understand ourselves we must understand society and more importantly the people in it. The idea behind this field of study is that people don't live in isolation from society and everybody is intertwined. Brene Brown discusses the idea of human connection and the willingness for everyone to be vulnerable.  After listening to her extremely enlightening talk I began to understand just how difficult this can be for the average person.  After all, we live in a world of judgement, generalizations, hardships and uncertainty and if I am vulnerable then something bad can happen? but something great can happen as well?  I show this video in hopes of reaching my students on a level where they can begin to understand that putting yourself out there is not the worst thing in the world and it is actually SUCH a great way to help others learn new ideas.  People today walk around in a fog, usually a fast paced fog, but a fog nonetheless.  "I don't really need to talk to you or have a conversation because I can just judge you and figure out who you are and that is much faster."  But what if we are wrong?  What if someone's "turn" "smile" or sweatshirt for the day wasn't really reminiscent of who they are and yet we called them "wild" anyways.  It is important to open up and understand that vulnerability leads to connection and understanding people is connecting.

Check out the ted talk here