Day 335 (Three-Hundred & Thirty-Five) of 365 days

What if I told you that your fragility is one of your best assets? Would you believe me, or would you beg to differ? We live in a world where softness is regarded as weakness and people are condemned for uncorking their emotions. In reality, those cashmere feelings require a certain calibre of strength and fearlessness to bear themselves in public. Imagine if we all sipped from the fountain of courage and exposed the deepest parts of ourselves, the parts that normally hide in the tiny crevices of our soul. Imagine if rather than shunning the prods of our hearts, we shared them at loudspeaker volumes.

We were all born with souls as soft as a feather, as sweet as honey, as wild as fire, as clear as the wind, and as gentle as the earth. Somewhere along the way, someone convinced you that the world will not be kind to those who are sensitive. Somewhere along the way, someone convinced you that love is conditional and that the things you love will destroy you. Somewhere along the way, someone convinced you that your softness is a weakness.

You believed them. You believed that the magical, mystical, breathing, beating thing in the centre of your universe was something weak. Your heart became a burden, a disadvantage, and a terrible inconvenience. You started distrusting and resenting this soft part of you that was so nakedly vulnerable. You built walls around it like the rest of them, and they praised, applauded and rewarded you for it. So, you assumed you were making progress. You thought that you were doing the right thing until you experienced something different.

I’m through with playing cool, with pretending not to care. Time is too fleeting to pretend. If they penalize me for being true, then let that mean I’ll be behind bars with those who feel as full-heartedly as me. Why deny the essence of who we are? Tell that person how you feel. If you’ve told them already, remind them. The worst case is unrequited love, but it will never be wasted. Telling someone you love them is never breath wasted.

Don’t allow the fear of forthcoming heartbreak to fence in your emotions. Don’t stow away your humanity just because you’re afraid of it breaking. It may crack, and dent, and be tossed around in the turbulences of life, but it will be better because of it. You will be better because of it. There is endless strength in being soft and so much cowardice in being callous.

There will come a time when you will let yourself give in to a life-changing epiphany, and you will realize that soft is strong. Soft is changeable. Soft is malleable. Soft is adaptable. Soft is natural. Soft is you, the real you, and when you remember to be soft again, you will finally, finally be free.