One of the odd side-effects of our hyper-tolerant post-post-modern cultural landscape is what I like to call “qualitative relativism”. It’s the belief that all paths are equal, that every person is the same, that we should not judge ourselves or others based on what we do, who we are, or how we naturally differ.

On the positive side, this has led to a culture of acceptance and diversity; people are unjustly punished for variables they can’t control less often than at previous times in history. But this has also led to a culture of delusion; we know every ‘cure’ has side-effects. A side-effect of open-mindedness has been a massive misunderstanding of the purpose and value of open-mindedness itself.

To acknowledge the objective differences between individuals is to penetrate the truth; this acknowledgment is only harmful when it leads us to hinder or hurt others based on their differences. But as every athlete, community organizer or business owner knows, collective strength comes from a group of people who know where they belong, what they’re good at, and, most importantly, what they’re not good at. Every person has a place, but only if both that individual and the teams of which they are a part are fully transparent about their strengths, weaknesses, personality types, and where they fit in best.

My conclusion from experience echoes the Tao Te Ching: the person who believes they fit in everywhere fits in nowhere; the person who refuses to acknowledge their weaknesses can never fully access their strengths.

The belief that life will magically organize itself around our individualism is just as silly as thinking that automobiles or antibiotics will invent themselves; these are uniquely human gifts that require our effort and maintenance to bring into existence.

For this reason, I believe the single most destructive impulse of our time is the over-sensitivity to criticism. If we can’t confront ourselves about what we suck at, about how we differ from others, how can we expect others to help us grow into our best selves (and vice-versa)?

Our traits are not surface-level qualities. They have evolved out of our experience the way species evolve out of the Earth, albeit on a smaller timeline. We live through experience, both controlled and uncontrolled, adjusting alongside the movement of time. Things happen, we react. We act, the world reacts. The stew of who we are is always bubbling, always changing in slight ways moment to moment. What brings us inner-peace, happiness and the strength to solve problems lives alongside what brings us pain, suffering and weakness. To understand and make the most of one, we must understand and accept the other.

The mark of every happy person I know is a lack of sensitivity to their own shortcomings and an openness to criticism. Knowledge of your own shortcomings is just like any other type of knowledge; you must make a decision to acquire it. If you only associate with people who flatter you, you will stagnate. If you never have those honest sobering conversations with yourself about how you failed, what you did, and what you can change, you will continue making the same mistakes.

Some methods I enjoy for cultivating this self-honesty:

—Meditation: a more natural understanding of the self tends to emerge even if we don’t try to evoke it

—Journaling: reflect on your missteps and your achievements; reflect on everything. Once this impulse becomes autonomous enough, you stop censoring yourself. And once you stop censoring, the good stuff emerges.

—The right friends: surround yourself with people who are honest and direct, not flatterers or sycophants. The former will help you flourish into who you can be; the latter will hold you back from any growth opportunities and also encourage you to wallow in their own delusion.

—Conscious listening: when someone is giving feedback, arguing with you, or criticizing you, listen as if you are a neutral third party. Don’t get emotional. Don’t get sensitive. Let yourself listen to the words and try to understand them. We often get so upset by criticism that we forget to actually listen to it; sometimes it’s garbage, other times it’s most honest information about ourselves we can possibly get. Feedback is always valuable.

The culture of sensitivity emerges from a profound logical misstep; the idealists want the world to be something it’s not, and so they pretend it’s something else. If we scale this logic down to the individual, it explains the general atmosphere of oversensitivity. We want ourselves to be something we’re not, so we pretend we’re something else. We refuse to gather information and feedback on who we really are, and perform as someone else instead, never growing, never changing. This is no way to live! It is literally a denial of life.

You can’t change nature, but you are always changing. You do not stop growing. So why not contribute actively to this growth process? Get as much criticism, feedback and awareness about your objective strengths and weaknesses as possible. Take informed risks, fail, learn from these failures and re-align yourself. Learn from them, and return to your thoughts and actions with a heightened and more nuanced awareness. Over time, you can grow into a greater version of yourself, and also understand how the unique qualities of others blend with yours to create dynamism and team-strength. The process never ends; learn to love the process.