I believe we humans give up too easily . . on ourselves, on others, in hoping and with our faith in humanity and life itself. We begin our lives needing everything.Having everything given to us because we cannot get it for ourselves. We learn to get what we need for ourselves or as we experience hard times in obtaining what it is we need, even at the most basic levels, we often get caught up in a negative mindset. That mindset is brought on by feelings of not attaining, not achieving, not getting and not having. We want so much, we desire so much and we need basics in life – like food, water, shelter and clothing.

Even with the most positive of hearts and minds, we can learn to be hardened to the ache of disappointment, the failure of not achieving, the need left unfulfilled and the loss of losing what we treasure. Hardening from within isn’t an act of courage in the face of our pain, it isn’t the way to becoming or even having what we want. Hardening in response to what we perceive as pain is merely the way we try to protect ourselves and our hearts from more disappointments, failures and losses.

We build walls of hardness around the soft, tender nature of our feeling hearts and reasoning minds to keep the world from hurting us, from breaking us any further and from seeming to take from us! But we don’t keep the world away when we become doubtful, hard and unloving as a response. We merely keep ourselves from anything which is positive, gentle and loving! It is difficult to be tender, to risk, to love, to be exposed in life. It is often going to be the case that things don’t go as we planned, that we’re surprised by loss, filled with grief and exposed to pain.

It is often the opposite as well! It is only when we allow ourselves to not be hardened by pain, anger, loss or unfulfilled hopes that we will experience the thrill of achievement. The wonder of beauty. The pleasantness of  pleasure.  kindness, tenderness, love, compassion, and all the positive aspects of life! Don’t let yourself become negative, hard and callous to life . . it won’t stop anything negative from coming into your life, nor does it stop the pain. It just prevents you from also knowing joy, peace, contentment, hope and love!