Failure is death

"To him, a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune a tragedy, a joy an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover a God and failure is death."
  
(Pearl S Buck describing a highly sensitive person - quoted in Therapy Today, Nov 2011, BACP magazine in the article 'Epilepsy and emotional wellbeing' by Tony Warren)

I read this and it caught at my heart. I couldn't work out why. I know people like this, for whom life affects them more than others, or more than me, certainly. Sometimes this person is me, or has been me. Especially when I've already been vulnerable, or rather, how I prefer to think of it, open. It's when we are open, when our hearts are laid bare to the world, that things will affect us more deeply.

What I am left with is that we're all very different. We don't really know how anything will impact another person and so we need to try to be aware, to have our eyes open. We need to look out for other people. We're all part of one thing, one human race, so why shouldn't we put a tiny bit more effort into seeing how we affect the other person, if only so that when we do accidentally deliver a blow, we can try to make sure that they fall gently and don't hurt themselves even more...or when they are lying on the ground, we don't kick them - we give them water.

It's not always possible to avoid hurting another, but it is possible to avoid delivering a fatal blow. It's not always possible to prevent someone failing, but it is possible to help them see that there is something beyond that failure. It's not always possible to prevent heartbreak, but you can prevent yourself adding to that damage.

I don't know where this leaves me. Still open I guess. Still pondering.