This quote stopped me in my tracks. Why love? Who wants to be vulnerable to pain? Yet, the alternative is even less appealing. Here's rest of the quote:

Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal.Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable....The only place outside heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all dangers...of love is hell.  (C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves, page 196. Quoted from Shepherding Women in Pain, page 50.)

In your life experience, what have you found? I'd love to hear from you!