Throughout my life thus far, I've had people tell me that I feel and love "too deeply." I started to believe them for some time. If you don't get attached, then you can't get hurt. You can't feel sadness or grief. You can't feel anger or jealousy. You can't feel defeat or loss. And yes, this is true. I guess you'll never feel these emotions if you're unattached and distant from everyone and everything. However, I've been thinking about this recently and the more you push yourself away from other people or various goals you wish to achieve, the more you prevent yourself from also feeling those positive emotions. You bring yourself into a state of nihilism and nothing really matters. In my opinion, this is both the safest and most dangerous way to live. It's safe because it prevents you from feeling upset or hurt, but it is dangerous in the sense that it keeps you from some of the feelings that make us feel most alive.
This idea can apply to any relationship or any desire, not only romantic ones. Honestly, I don't even mean this whole article to be taken about feeling or loving romantically. For example, you can love your job or your schoolwork very deeply. You can feel completely invested in it. You can put your whole self into each day of work or school because you care about what you're doing. You care about the difference you're making in people's lives through your job or about your grades in school that will help you achieve all your goals. Yes, your job or course load may be hard and if you don't care you won't be as affected by a bad review or a low grade on an exam. However, at the same time, you won't feel any sense of accomplishment when you do well or achieve the grade that you studied for weeks to earn. If you don't care about your productivity, you will lose all motivation and just exist without knowing what to exist for. This can be a scary place.
In addition, you can care deeply about your family, friends, and even your acquaintances. You can want what is best for them in every situation you encounter and whenever someone hurts them, it hurts you. This can most certainly be tough because friends can sometime disappoint you which can upset you terribly. However, if we don't love and feel for our friends, then we can't ever know what a good friendship is like. We will never feel their love either if we are not giving ours. I have a few friends who don't live very close to me, but are still some of my best friends in the whole world. It can be tough to avoid missing someone you care about when they live 3,000 miles away. This takes a toll and sometimes makes you miss them so much that it hurts to have such a close bond with them. You can't spend as much time as you want to with them. However, when I think about my personal long distance friendships, I can't picture my life without them, despite how much they may hurt sometimes. If I had never made these friendships, I would have missed out on the greatest times. I would have never known the unexplainable feeling of finally seeing them after a few months or even a year. There's no better feeling than that.
If you don't feel and love, you may miss out on some of the greatest moments that life has to offer us. And I definitely don't want to miss out.
