Vulnerable : To be , or not to be . . .

Alright, I feel as though I need to begin this blog post with a bit of an apology for my month-and-half long hiatus. Turns out college is a really busy time. Who knew? But anyway, here we are again. So I happened to run across the quote above just the other day, and immediately, I felt this unbelievable sort of connection with it. I couldn't help but think, "Well shoot, Ernest. That was probably one of the most ornately, articulately accurate pieces of profoundness I have ever laid eyes upon. I can dig it."

So what exactly have we got here? Vulnerability. First and foremost, I have to let it be known that I simply loathe the thought of being vulnerable, and yet time and time again, I find myself unintentionally being exactly that. I just have always been that person who becomes incredibly invested in everything I do and every relationship I form, and while in some ways this can be wonderful, I must also admit that it has some quite notable downsides. Yesterday, one of my friends said to me, "I think we just naturally expect people to deal with situations like us and to approach relationships in the same way we do. So then when they don't, we cannot even begin to understand how that could be, and it usually just ends up upsetting us. Don't worry; every human does it." So yesterday I realized that I'm definitely human. But besides that, I unearthed so much more.

You see, I have forever been bothered by the fact that I become overly invested in things. Perhaps you've been there too. You act on impulse or do outrageously extravagant things for people you barely know or let "friends" treat you however they see fit because you perpetually hold on to the fact that maybe, just maybe, one day it will change. Sound familiar? Well then congratulations, you were, perhaps unknowingly, making yourself vulnerable. Because when we do such things, it's often our natural inclination to expect that these people will do the same for us and reciprocate the monstrous investment or that these people will in fact change sooner or later down the line. And then if they don't, it's easy to think, "Are you kidding me? I put everything on the line here. I did everything for you. I saw your potential before anyone else did. And this is how you're repaying me?"

For the longest time, this is how I went about things. Isn't that awful? And then I would tell myself that I would never make the same mistake again. Except that never happened. So I got to thinking, and I began to question if this is really a bad thing. As human beings, we were created to take risks; to seek out every last bit of beauty and potential in others and trust that in time (possibly A LOT of time), this potential will come to fruition; to make sacrifices and put ourselves on the line for the sake of others. But sadly, a life lived in such a way does not come with guaranteed satisfaction. Not everyone will reciprocate kindness, not everyone will care to hear your thoughts of his or her beauty, not everyone will even notice the sacrifices that you're making for them. And that's okay. Will it hurt sometimes? Oh goodness, you bet. But that's the price of giving in to a bit of vulnerability. That's the price of continual investment, even when investment seems a tad futile. That's the price of loving people with crazy, immense, outrageous magnitude. And it really is okay I've decided.

After all, we mustn't invest simply to gain returns on the investment. We're talking about relationships here, not the stock market. So by all means, invest. But keep in mind that a life invested can never be a life unscathed.

Sometimes the risks are worth it. Be a little vulnerable.