Once bitten, twice shy

Protective, wary, watchful, defensive: that is a reasonable description of a cold-hearted person.

Such people are scared of bearing the same pain again. This is why they tend to shield themselves from their surroundings, try to keep less feelings and emotions, and don’t deal with their emotional burden well, which ultimately dissociates them from society.

Hard-hearted people suffer from such wounds that they can’t seem to get over and keep themselves detached from the outside world. This kind of pain is something, which certainly does not make them stronger but shallower day by day.

Despite beautiful and happy moments in their lives, they don’t seem to enjoy wonderful times but only let the pain colour the picture of life. This starts affecting their decisions in day-to-day life, especially when it relates to the people around them.

Another significant point to be understood regarding such people is that they need to understand that pain cannot be avoided. Irrespective of the decisions made in life: circumstances and situations faced by the individual in life, pain cannot be ignored indefinitely. Such a person seems to be comfortable with the pain and suffering.

Life is uncertain. Life is unpredictable. Life can give you beautiful moments even when you have decided to live with a cold heart forever. But you cannot live like this forever. Life gives you new opportunities. All you’ve got to do is see and observe.

Keep your eyes wide open. If you allow new opportunities to enter into your life, you are bound to break open the hard shells around your heart. What needs to be realized, however, is that life changes. No one can stay sad and unhappy forever. No one can suffer for his/her entire lifetime. There is a need for change undoubtedly in life. Life cannot be peacefully stale forever. It needs a change, which is much required in a nutshell.

Hard-hearted people are often considered to be anti-social. This is why people avoid them. Perhaps it’s because they had high expectations of something and nothing came of it that was planned or expected. This makes them self-conscious and hence need help from someone who can make them understand that this is a universal problem and they need to overcome it.

What needs to be kept in mind is that nobody is born heartless; nobody is coldhearted. This person is the unfortunate outcome of certain bad circumstances. Such people are just dealing with the fear of putting trust in other people with their feelings, which can pose to be an issue and makes them vulnerable.

Every one of us carries around extra baggage all the time throughout our lives. This only worsens our situation. A cold heart has a way of adding more baggage, which makes it difficult for anyone to think of improving life and just simply move on. After the person justifies the pain, he/she needs to realize the lesson behind this pain.

Indeed there is always a lesson behind a useful pain – this is the only thing that is going to make it useful and not worth suffering.

Don’t shut something down before giving a chance to it once. There is always a fear of failure involved in inculcating change in life. To some extent, people can create an opinion related to such a person. But this should not hold back the person, and in fact, calculated risk taking is always advised to welcome changes.

Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.