One of the strongest correlates of both happiness and success, based on my personal experience and observations of others around me, is the ability to stay vulnerable as we get older. This vulnerability applies broadly to business, love, and wisdom — only by subjecting oneself to significant risk does one obtain the possibility for substantial gain.
There are 2 main failure modes for individuals regarding vulnerability: (1) those who refuse a type of future potential pain after experiencing it once or more, and (2) those who fear tarnishing a good record. An entrepreneur who fails once, a jilted lover, a partisan with betrayed faith — the correct sequelae is to learn the lessons specific to the business or individual or topic, and not to develop an overly broad “immune response” to reject all future business opportunities, potential soul mates, or new worldviews.
In the first case, to take the example of romantic relationships, a terminated companionship or a failed limerence frequently results in an inability for the affected individual to love again to the same extent (particularly for the F-types in Myer-Briggs) — in extreme cases, this could result in outcomes such as ending one’s life, promiscuity to somehow take revenge against the former lover or the concept of love itself, or building a mental wall to prevent closeness with others in the future. Parallel adverse outcomes exist for the world of business and political/spiritual beliefs.
In the second case, to take the specific case of faith or politics, many people in the world cling to a set of beliefs that come neatly packaged for them, be it Buddhism or Libertarianism, by generations and crowds of “experts” in these areas. In their subconsciouses, many followers of these idea packages realize that they don’t agree with 100% of tenets, but they fear excommunication from the group. Thus, these followers don’t raise concerns or criticism about 5% of ideas, even if they agree with the other 95%, and they don’t actively seek out other ideologies to remix with their credo and do not seek inspiration from other philosophies or faiths.
It is well known that most individuals’ Agreeableness score on the Big 5 personality test decreases with age. In my opinion, this is overall a net positive, as it reflects the individuals avoiding and pruning meaningless interactions in seek of innate personal fulfillment. But this is unfortunately accompanied also with the decline of Openness with age.
Openness is how we grow to be a better version of ourselves. The moment in which one becomes irreversibly zero Openness is the moment which that individual can be completely and utterly replaced by an AI trained on their past. To continue learning and living meaningfully requires that we are Open to new ideas, which implies a conscious decision to embrace Vulnerability, to make peace with the potential (and even overwhelming likelihood) for continued future pain, fear, and frustration.
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