I can’t speak for most men, but there are certain emotions I really only feel thanks to my relationship with my wife and my kids.

Time is constantly passing and the future is never guaranteed. There’s both joy and sadness in watching my kids grow up a little bit more each day. There’s both joy and sadness in knowing I love my wife to the point I made a pact to grow old together with her, yet one of us is undeniably going to outlive the other.

Life is a gift and time is all we have. I love my wife and my kids so much that it hurts.

But… aside from these thoughts, my brain is not wired to think outside of a certain operating system.

Something I have learned this year after jokingly making my New Year’s Resolution to “be more vulnerable and connected to my emotions”, is that as a man, I mainly only operate using a few select emotions:

Joy, passion, creativity, assertiveness, and “chill”.

Accordingly, my subconscious directs me away from expressing or even feeling any of the vulnerable emotions like shame, fear and anxiety. Otherwise, I would take it as a personal attack that I am “associating myself with weakness”.

This year I had to come to terms with the fact that my personality is much more intense than most people’s. But after enough family members, friends, and coworkers all were describing me the same way, I began to accept that the way I operate is not necessarily the norm.

It has only been the past couple of months I have allowed myself to be “vulnerable” enough to embrace that I am the Challenger; known as Enneagram 8.

Or in Myers-Briggs, an ESTP.

Yes, I’m friendly. But I’m not a “nice guy”.

Yes, I’m a very social person. But I have strong personal boundaries.

No, I do not want to carpool with you. I want to leave when I want to leave.

No, we’re not going to split the check. I’m going to tell the waiter up front that these are on separate checks.

And while I do care to a certain extent that people like me, I am acutely aware that if everyone likes me, it’s probably a sign that I am doing something wrong- because I live by the fact that “you can’t make everyone happy”.

That’s what it’s like inside my head. Therefore, I am naturally surrounded by people who depend on me to be that strong personality for them.

To be clear, I don’t necessarily want to be in charge. Officially, I never hold that title. Instead, people often treat me like I am… so, I am.

Basically, I’m the official “no” guy. When others need a decision to be made, I’m the one who makes it okay to say no. I’ll make the call for them if they need me to.

In my experience, the person who says no typically is the person with the power. And if that’s me, I’m okay with it.

I now understand that I am fundamentally driven by the desire to have a sense of power and control- in other words, to never put myself in a vulnerable situation. To be “untouchable” and above reproach.

So while I myself may not have the capacity to easily access and feel certain emotions on my own, I am tethered to people I love who are able to show me what those emotions look like.

I am able to feel these vulnerable emotions, perhaps vicariously. In a way, my love for my wife and my children help me to experience life from more of a full “human” perspective.