The biggest mistake you can make is to think you're alive, when really, you're asleep in life's waiting room...

My trust in people has been sorely misplaced many times over. For some people it's easier not to trust anyone at all. And sometimes, ashamedly, I wish I could do the same. However, it's easier for me to trust and give everyone a chance to change my mind. It's both a blessing and a curse. In my heart I know it's important not to close up and shut down because of bad past experiences, because one would never grow and learn, otherwise. Lately I've been getting gut feelings that my openness to people and experiences makes me ignore. I've often caught myself in internal debates over being my obtusely open and naive self, or being the aloof, enigmatic person I so desperately am trying to convince myself I can be. I always find myself trying  to prove my own worth as a person to everyone else, when, really, deep down I know what I have to offer is great. Maybe further down, what I really crave is not affirmation of my own worth, but to bring that self worth and greatness out of other people. Opening up to another human being is one of the most dangerous things one can do. It's ammunition. It's giving someone a loaded gun, holding it point blank to your own chest and trusting they won't pull the trigger. I could only name a hand-full of times where my trust and openness has been well placed, but those few instances make the rest of the emotional scars and disappointments completely worth all the pain suffered. The few diamond encrusted golden nuggets found through sifting among the vast fields of dirt and neck high mounds of shit is what keeps me going. Those people, those situations, those experiences, however transient they may be, is what I live for. I'll never stop searching for those moments or people who reaffirm the qualities that I believe everyone has the capacity to express: honesty, love, trust, faithfulness, kindness. The price I pay to find such things is high, but I'll pay it a thousand times over, I'll continue to trudge through the mud and the muck to find what little goodness seems to exist in this world. And maybe, just maybe, I can help the world find goodness, too.