“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” (Solomon, 4:23)
It’s been said many times in many ways, and I think that yes, it is important to protect your heart, because after all, it’s who you are. I believe your truest self is your love, whatever that may be. As the proverb goes, all your actions are influenced by your emotions. However, I also believe there is merit to unconditionally loving. It is important to protect your heart, but never protect it so much that you hold yourself back. For a while, I tried to do this. I tried to stop myself from loving so hard, because it seemed to most always end painfully. But recently, I’ve come to realize that I shouldn’t try to change how I feel for an easier experience. I exist to feel all life has to offer and that means loving, knowing your heart will break, but giving it your all anyway. So break your heart, let it heal, and break it again. Give all that you have to give until you have barely anything left and learn how emptiness feels. You can only value the feeling of being fulfilled if you first know emptiness. Get hurt. Get hurt and exist. Protect your heart, but don’t protect yourself from life. Life is going to happen whether or not you’re actively participating.
I am obsessed with the concept that this current moment is all we can swear on. So, I’ve decided to embrace that. Don’t let yourself waste opportunities out of fear of getting hurt because you will lose them if you choose not to try. The truth is, you will get hurt. You can’t avoid it. You’re going to fall in love so hard that you think you won’t be able to feel anything else ever again and some days you’ll be so disinterested in life you won’t feel at all. But what is the point of guarding yourself from getting hurt if you prevent yourself from loving and living life to the fullest?
Think. Get lost in thought. You control nothing but yourself. Accept that life isn’t in your hands, but how you go about living it is. You came to have the human experience so embrace the human condition; embrace the joy and the pain that teaches you to value it. Don’t wait. Say yes. Tell people you love them, even if it’s unrequited, enjoy your ability to feel love.
Allow yourself to care and be let down, to try and fail, to invest your all whenever you can even if it means you could lose. Give the love you want to receive, be the friend you wish you had, be the parent you always needed, say the things you want to hear.
Scrape your knees, feel lonely, fall in love, fall out of it, learn new things, laugh so hard you cry, go on drives with no destination, feel every minute, even if it hurts. Because that’s what it means to exist; love unconditionally. Keep getting up everyday and loving again. Protect your heart by making it stronger. Protect your heart by loving so hard, nothing can make you stop.