For those of you who know me, and I mean know me well, you know that I am more on the emotional side. I don’t always show it — like many people, I learned to keep to myself and hold a lot in— but I have always felt that things affect me more than they affect others.

I work for an event planning company and take pictures at weddings, which means I get to watch the wedding from start to finish. Basically, I cry the whole time. I cry at happiness, sadness, humor, and any other emotion you can think of — almost anything.

What I do know to be true, though, is most emotional people don’t get emotional for attention, they’re emotional because that’s the way they’ve always been. They don’t choose to be emotional individuals, it’s just the way they are. And there’s nothing at all wrong with that, contrary to popular belief.

We have a cultural disinclination towards being emotional, or, at the very least, we dislike even appearing to be emotional. We’re taught as children that that this a weakness, that emotion should cause shame. That you’re not tough if you cry, that it’s ‘cool’ to be heartless, that you should keep your heart guarded from anything that makes you feel something.

Looking back on that childhood convention, it’s laughable. It’s funny, no? Having feelings means experiencing the world on different levels — just like we do through sight, touch, smell, and sound. It’s how we decipher our emotions and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

It’s taking in information from the outside world and experiencing a personal connection with it — which is in itself an incredible experience.

Simply put, through my eyes, those who are more emotional are experiencing life more than those who aren’t. They’re seeing all the beauty in the world around them and are taking in their reality. They are, quite literally, living more.

Tell me this: How exactly is this a sign of weakness? Why were we taught from such a young age that feeling something so deeply in this world is portrayed as cowardly? Weakness is found in our responses to how we experience the world, not in the depth of those experiences. I see physical reaction and human emotions to the world around us as anything but cowardly.

It’s one thing to see and sense, but it’s another thing entirely to experience. There is a clear distinction between the outside world and you … until emotions come into that mix. When we experience emotions in response to things that happen outside of our conscious selves, we’re forming a connection to those things — the world outside our skin. That is when emotions come into play, they undeniably make you feel something.

I’m sure that I don’t have to tell you that when it comes to focus, diligence, adherence and dedication, you need to be one-hundred percent invested to receive the best result. When it comes to something you’re completely passionate about, you’re going to give it your all. In that moment, during those occasions, you are experiencing emotions into something you’re invested in.

One of the greatest skills a person functioning in our world can have is empathy. Empathy allows us to put ourselves in another person’s shoes, see the world through their eyes, and feeling the way that they feel. People who are ‘weak’ in the eye’s of today’s society, are more empathetic.

This is incredibly important, as empathizing helps you understand how other people function — why they do the things that they do, and it allows us to see things from every view without tunnel vision.The most beautiful thing about empathy is that it allows us to form personal connections with other individuals.

Unless we understand empathy, we will be forever alone. Even when we’re surrounded by masses of people, we won’t feel connected to them because we cannot perceive any scenarios but our own.

People might regard you as weak when they notice that you feel things more deeply than they do. They may comment on it, or even taunt this fact — no matter their age. But vulnerability and emotion are closely tied to passion, which is crucial to living a fulfilling life.

At the same time, passion can be your downfall.

Passion makes it more likely for you to act on impulse and make poor decisions. But you can learn from those poor decisions, and you will come out better for making them.

My passions may have led me down some wrong paths in my short 20 years of life, but I have emerged ironclad, with a ravenous thirst for greatness. Hell yes. So make your emotions work for you, and you will be unstoppable.

There is a difference between being an emotional mess and letting your emotions control you.

Weakness is allowing your emotions to take the wheel from you entirely, and being an emotional mess is having absolutely no outlet for your emotions. The more emotions you experience, the more emotions you can better understand, the more you will learn about yourself and what drives you to do the things you love.

The things you love are what you need to feed your emotions into. But you need to be willing to learn. Don’t let your emotions govern your life. Make them work for you.

When observing your feelings from a distance and not getting too involved in everything you see, you will learn to make better life decisions, and quite frankly, it’s eye opening.

You must learn to differentiate between emotions themselves and the way that you react to them. People often fail to realize just how deep their consciousness is.

We don’t simply encounter the world and then experience emotions in reaction to it. We experience the world, we experience emotions, and then we interpret these feelings before deciding how to act.

We experience emotion in order to help us better understand ourselves — to understand our strengths and weaknesses. Emotions are beneficial only if we learn from them. Emotions will teach you more about you and your relationship to the outside world than anything else ever could.

With all these emotions, your head might explode or come close to it — but every step will lead you closer and closer to the exact life you want. And you will see things with clearer vision.