Have you ever heard anyone ask you to take off your kid gloves? Someone else told me to develop Rhino skin. Seems to me we come up with a lot of interesting ways to tell people to toughen up. I have come to the conclusion that if I DID toughen up as much as I likely need to in order to "take" what others dish out all the time, I would no longer be totally me. My ability to feel for others comes from being able to hurt for them. Being more sensitive makes me more vulnerable to being hurt, but always able to have deeper compassion. In short, we can't have it both ways. My wonderful tough friends are great leaders. I am a boo-boo kisser(:. Not that I can fix all the boo-boos of the world. I am just learning to figure out where my strengths and weaknesses are and try to be less self critical. It is so easy to list out all of my short comings and become consumed by the lack of improvement. I wish I could encourage myself as easily as I can someone else. Words can be so sw