We felt pathetic.

Trading stories, a roommate and I, commiserating about a topic that's irrelevant to this story. But we felt that way, nonetheless.

The stories were wrenching, for us, emotionally. And, we feel that way about other things too - I think we find ourselves in this predicament of feeling pathetic, precisely because we're willing to take risks in social and emotional matters. In essence, we feel pathetic, because we take on tough cookies and struggle.

I don't write this to garner some sort of pity party, by the way.

Rather, the point of me writing this is to say that I don't think it's pathetic at all. Even though I feel that way, often. We shouldn't feel pathetic because we live life in a way that gets us into tough spots beause we put it all out there. We put our hats into the ring and leave all our cards on the table, so to speak. That's not lame. It's the stuff that underwrites dream-chasing.

Indeed, non-bearers of social risk aren't pathetic either. However, if we lack people willing to take social and emotional risks, we as a society are surely lost. We should not feel pathetic for doing things which are hard. We cannot.