Why are we so afraid of appearing vulnerable?

We have been conditioned to protect ourselves by assuming a 'tough', aggressive posture. We live by the norm, "The best form of defense is to go on the offensive", "to hurt before you are hurt".  Sadly, this attitude has created a justification to inflict hurt rather than 'risk' getting hurt by being honest about our feelings.

This hardness reflects in our responses and reactions. We avoid admitting to being hurt by the words and actions of others, for such an admission is deemed a weakness. The word in play here is 'fine'. When things are falling apart, be it a relationship or a situation, we often brush off the fallout by saying "fine" despite the fact that we are devastated. Instead of being a flower and losing a petal we choose to be a thorn and hide behind the word 'fine'. Thus we live in a world that is a garden of thorns, not flowers. 

If we were to reflect on the times that we had masked our true feelings for fear of appearing to be vulnerable, and the suppressed and internalized pain that we could have avoided had we been open, how much happier we would have been. This 'thorny' image that we project to the world results in equally barbed responses assiduously following the maxim, "An eye for an eye!" Small wonder why we are so blinded to the beauty of being a flower and spreading sweetness.