Happiness Comes from Being Soft

Sometimes, I feel that everything I write, draw, and say is just a remix of All You Need Is Love by The Beatles. Fundamentally, all of us want to be happy, and we understand that happiness and being loved are linked together. But often, we find happiness eludes us because we are unwilling to love first. We are taught to harden ourselves against the threat of rejection. We play it cool, never being fully vulnerable with those closest to us, and we never risk heartbreak by loving too freely. Connecting with strangers becomes a game of chicken: who will be soft and vulnerable first? Men are especially reticent to open themselves up to rejection, and too many men only know how to react to even the gentlest letdown with rage and violence. Happiness doesn’t come from an absence of sadness or rejection. The most joyful people are not hardened against the cruelty of the world. Instead, the happiest people are the softest people. To love and to be loved is to be purposefully vulnerable to heartbreak, and to choose to love anyway. The refrain, “All You Need Is Love,” may sound trite and saccharine, but this classic song endures almost sixty years later because it contains…