TL;DR
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A Tiny Buddha essay describes an author hesitating to tell a former friend about a chronic health issue, despite recognizing several reasons as avoidance. The account distinguishes excuses from a legitimate choice to protect privacy and argues that not sharing can be valid, while still differing from a deliberate decision.
Tiny Buddha’s essay “The Excuses We Make to Avoid Being Vulnerable” recounts an author’s decision not to tell a former graduate-school friend about a chronic health issue, after several explanations for staying quiet surfaced during their conversation. The first-person account matters because it separates reasons that may mask avoidance from a genuine concern about privacy and control over one’s story.
The author describes messaging the friend late at night after routine updates about family, work and daily life. When the conversation reached a point where a more personal disclosure was possible, the author considered mentioning health problems from the previous year, but felt embarrassed despite recognizing that the condition was not their fault.
Three thoughts argued against bringing it up: it was late, the friend was tired, and the friend did not share every illness she experienced. The author later characterized the first two as consideration that could conceal avoidance and the third as keeping score. The author writes that recognizing these patterns in real time did not make it easier to act differently.
A separate concern was that someone less close might repeat the information, leaving the author unable to shape how it was described. The author says close friends already know about the health issue, but worries that a more distant acquaintance could make it the defining fact they remember. A child waking from a bad dream interrupted the deliberation; the author did not return to the conversation the following morning and says the disclosure remains unmade.
The essay frames vulnerability as a choice rather than an obligation. Its author does not conclude that the health issue must be disclosed, or that withholding it is inherently unhealthy. Instead, the account asks readers to distinguish a deliberate decision not to share from a decision that never gets made because discomfort, convenient explanations or circumstances keep postponing it.
That distinction is relevant to ordinary relationships, where people often weigh openness against the possible loss of privacy. The essay also cautions against treating every hesitation as a failure: concern about being discussed without consent is presented as a real boundary, not simply another excuse. The author’s account is personal reflection, not evidence that one approach fits everyone.
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The Conversation That Stalled
The piece is a first-person essay, not a report of a study or a clinical finding. The author identifies as a psychologist and describes having enough familiarity with avoidance to recognize the rationalizations as they arose. The account emphasizes that insight did not resolve the choice.
The author quotes Brené Brown’s line, “Vulnerability minus boundaries is not vulnerability.” In the essay, that idea sits alongside the author’s concern that information shared with a distant friend could be retold outside the author’s presence. The writer says the health issue is not hidden from close friends and distinguishes that existing disclosure from sharing it more broadly.
““Vulnerability minus boundaries is not vulnerability.””
— Brené Brown, quoted at the beginning of the Tiny Buddha essay
The author does not say whether they will eventually tell the friend, writing that they may never disclose the health information and that this could still be a reasonable choice. The essay does not identify the condition or provide details about its effects, and it does not report the friend’s response; she was not told in the exchange described.
The source is a personal account and does not establish how common these patterns are or whether they apply to other people. The ending also leaves the author’s final assessment of the privacy concern unfinished in the supplied text, so its full conclusion cannot be confirmed from this material.
Whether the Conversation Resumes
The essay gives no announced follow-up or timeline for another conversation. The author says the disclosure has not happened and leaves open whether it ever will. The next step, if any, is therefore a personal decision by the author, not a reported event readers can expect on a set date.
For readers, the account’s immediate takeaway is narrower: notice whether a choice to keep something private is intentional, while recognizing that the right not to share remains intact. The essay does not prescribe disclosure as the required outcome.
Key Questions
What is the Tiny Buddha essay about?
It describes an author debating whether to tell a former friend about a chronic health issue, then reflecting on the reasons for remaining silent.
Did the author tell the friend?
No. The author says the conversation was interrupted when their daughter woke from a bad dream and that they did not return to the disclosure the next morning.
Does the essay argue that people should always disclose personal information?
No. The author says people have a right not to share and that some reasons for protecting privacy are legitimate. The essay distinguishes that choice from drifting into avoidance without deciding.
What concern did the author consider legitimate?
The author worried that a less-close acquaintance might repeat the health information and make it a defining part of how others saw them, without the author being present to explain it.
Source: rss
