Pain and Love

When did I become so afraid of getting hurt? When did the risk of pain become a good enough reason not to love? Life if filled with pain. Something worth having is something worse loosing. Is it not a truer love to know that you might get hurt in the end and choose to love anyway? If someone is worth loving, then they should be worth that risk....right?

"Much-Afraid shrank back. 'I am afraid,' she said. 'I have been told that if you really love someone you give that loved one the power to hurt and pain you in a way nothing else can.'
'That is true,' agreed the Shepherd. 'To love does mean to put yourself into the power of the loved one and to become very vulnerable to pain, and you are very Much-Afraid of pain, are you not?'
She nodded miserably and then said shamefacedly, 'Yes, very much afraid of it.'
'But it is so happy to love,' said the Shepherd quietly. 'It is happy to love enen if you are not loved in return. There is pain too, certainly, but Love does not think that very significant.' "