Happiness Comes from Being Soft
To love means being open to heartbreak
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 a human truth.
What if love isn’t forever?
People who are easy to love are usually those who also love easily. It’s easy to overthink love. My parents never bought us pets because they were afraid of how sad we would become when the pet died. How many of us do the same thing to ourselves?
We decide not to let other people know we love them because we are afraid of how much it will hurt when the love ends.
But love isn’t forever. Nothing on this planet is. Everything is finite. It’s the finite nature of existence that gives it beauty. The butterfly is not beautiful because it is immortal. We love to watch butterflies because they flitter in and out of our lives in spectacular, fleeting moments.
People die. People change. Some romantic relationships last a lifetime; most last only a season. It’s not the length of a relationship that makes it successful or not. It is the amount of our true selves that we shared with the other person.
Choosing not to take a risk on love because the relationship will end is as silly as choosing not to get excited about the fall leaves just because one day their beauty will fade.
The Japanese concept of wabi sabi teaches us that the most interesting and sublime beauty is imperfect and transient. The teacup that was once cracked and then skillfully repaired is more valuable than the unblemished teacup, in part, because the once-cracked teacup was loved enough to be used.
The same is true of the human heart.
This doesn’t just apply to romantic love. The love you have for your friends, your favorite artist, and even your pet is not permanent. It, like everything else in your life, is always changing and slowly dying.
Happiness can only come when you are soft enough, vulnerable enough, to acknowledge that loving something or someone means one day it or they will break your heart.
This is true of your favorite sports team, your spouse, your child, and anyone or anything else you are brave enough to openly love.
It’s no wonder Alfred Tennyson’s words, written in 1850 as he grieved the death of a dear friend, are still used by friends trying to console the heartbroken:
’Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.— Lord Alfred Tennyson, “In Memoriam A. H. H.,” 27.13–17
Overcoming your fear of loss
Heartbreak is a form of grief. When you lose a loved one because they have died, or their affections have changed, or some combination of choices has driven you apart, you mourn the loss of that relationship. Heartbreak can also be when you grieve over the suffering your loved one must endure, when you are helpless to ameliorate it.
Heartbreak is not just about romantic love. I have been heartbroken over friendships, and the most acute heartbreak I’ve ever suffered was caused by the suffering of my children, suffering that I could do nothing to ease.
If you find yourself unable to find love, it might be because you are too afraid of heartbreak. At some level, you know that heartbreak is part of the package with love, and you are afraid of loss.
You are avoiding the wrong risks.
To be in love and to be hurt are crucial parts of the human experience. Love is the root of joy, but heartbreak is the soil where love first starts to grow.
The English language has a famously limited vocabulary of love. We use one word, “love,” to mean so many different things. Where Latin has eros, philla, storge, and agape, English has love.
Perhaps, this paucity of vocabulary is a good thing. Isn’t the love of your romantic partner not that different from your love of a pet, a sibling, or even a sports team? The love is manifested in very different ways in these different situations, but doesn’t it all come from a desire to be connected?
I think back to all the heartbreak the Oakland Athletics baseball team has brought me over the years, and I find it was a useful training ground for the deeper, more serious heartbreaks I would experience. Even though that team is now dead to me because the owner decided to move the team out of Oakland, and now might be renaming the franchise, I’m grateful for all the memories I have of going to the old Oakland Coliseum to watch hours and hours of baseball.
When it comes to love, no matter what kind of love, loss is part of the deal. My parents may have tried to spare our feelings by not getting us a pet, but my siblings and I still cried when our mom and dad died early, five months apart.
You cannot avoid heartbreak by choosing not to love anything. Life will still break your heart, and foregoing love only means denying yourself the best part of being human.
We work to control the wrong things
Hardening yourself against rejection doesn’t make you brave. It makes you a control freak. You are trying to control the actions of other people while denying yourself the comfort of sadness and grief.
You cannot make someone else love you. You cannot control anyone else’s feelings or actions. You cannot make someone else happy, and no other person can make you happy either.
All you can control in this world is your attitude and your actions. You can control how you react to what happens to you.
But it feels less painful to try and exert control over other people rather than do the work of being responsible for your own thoughts, feelings, and actions.
Choosing to build a wall between you and rejection, spending your precious life trying to control the choices of partners, children, and friends, is choosing misery because you weren’t strong enough to be soft.
The cure to loneliness is bravery
There is a loneliness epidemic. It is not a male loneliness epidemic. It is a human loneliness epidemic. The cure to loneliness is simple, but not easy.
We must be brave.
You must be brave.
You have to be willing to be the first one to reach out to a potential friend. You have to be willing to be rejected, and be willing to accept that rejection, move forward, and reach out to more people.
This doesn’t mean you must pretend rejection doesn’t hurt. You must not do that. Never avoid your feelings.
You should feel the sting of rejection, cry, and then remember you are still alive. Heartbreak, it turns out, is one of the most painful things we can experience as human beings, but it is almost never fatal.
Heartbreak and love do not require you to harden your heart, to hide your feelings, or to build a defensive wall. They require you to be soft.
Softness is strength
To love is to be willing to be hurt; you will get hurt. But why live life if you aren’t willing to pick up some cuts and bruises?
Imagine trying to teach a toddler to walk while swaddling them with bubble wrap, a helmet, and googles. Imagine never letting that child fall. Children learn to walk by falling.
It’s painful, but the benefits of forward locomotion greatly outweigh the risks.
You cannot avoid pain. You cannot love without being hurt. That is why being a soft human who loves easily and is easily loved is such a sign of strength. You are showing that you believe that loving someone or something is worth the risk and that you are strong enough to withstand the consequences.
Being soft is brave. It is knowing that you will heal from any heartbreaks.
Happiness is not possible without love, and love is not possible without heartbreak and heartache.
If you want to be happier, try becoming softer. Love is all you need.
If you’re new to Weirdo Poetry, welcome! I’m Jason McBride, a best-selling author and poet-cartoonist. I do all of my own writing and illustrating. I do not use AI in any part of my creative process. If you love this post, you will enjoy my books and zines, sold everywhere books are sold. You can also buy directly from me in the Weirdo Poetry Shop.
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This post was previously published on Medium and Substack.
