You can protect yourself

 You can protect yourself from getting hurt

by never caring too deeply or investing

yourself too much in any pursuit.

So many of us try to stay safe by staying

detached. We shoot down ideas because they

sound too good to be true, and we don’t want

to be fooled or taken advantage of. We don’t

try as hard as we could because then if we fall

short, we can always excuse it as not having

been our best effort. We don’t open up to

others for fear of being vulnerable and getting

hurt.

This used to be one of my prime directives,

and it was extremely scary to try doing things

the other way. Admit that I liked that corny

movie? People will know I’m not cool! Try

something I’m not good at? People might see

me fail! Let people see the real me, warts and

all? They won’t like me! I used to work very

hard to keep people from seeing anything but

the perfect veneer I presented to them... and

then get upset that nobody understood me.

If this sounds familiar, I can tell you from

experience, because I’ve tried it both ways: be

real. You may think you’re protecting yourself

by staying detached, but actually, you still get

plenty hurt that way, and you keep yourself

from fully living. You can’t change the world by

shooting down other people’s ideas. You can’t

do something great if you never risk screwing

up or letting other people see you being less

than perfect. You can’t have a truly intimate

relationship if you never let another person see

the real you, all of you, raw and unvarnished.

By staying detached, you keep yourself from

ever fully living.