I spent New Year’s Eve with a small group of close friends. And before popping the Champagne, we celebrated things a little differently.

We let our guards down.

The concept isn’t unusual with the close-knit group of friends that I’m grateful to have in my life, we do it often. But there was something different about this. We exposed vulnerabilities that, as close as we are, I don’t think we fully realized about one another.

We’ve spent countless hours together, those late-evenings that become mornings, talking about everything one can imagine. I know more about many of these friends than I do of people in my family.

But I learned things about these friends that I hadn’t known, or didn’t fully understand. The kind of things that are often masked in social situations.

And of all that I learned, what strikes me the most is how vulnerable we all are. Regardless of what mask of confidence one wears, we all have our soft spots, our weaknesses, and our insecurities.