Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place.
We all have experienced things in life that have given us a sort of thick skin, or as some may say pain that has caused up to "put up a guard". Protecting ourselves is just part of our human nature, naturally no one wants to be hurt, and when we realize the things that hurt us we tend to stay away from them, or if we do go around the things that have made us hurt before, we go around them skeptically, sometimes with the intent to cause those things the pain that they may have caused us.
Our natural human instincts of survival may be correlated with the way treat our relationships. Since many of us have been hurt, some of us go about relationships skeptically, and with the intentions of hurting someone before they may have a chance of hurting us. It is important to remember that keeping a guard is fine, but to also trust your heart. Remember that the world is still a beautiful place and there are still nice people in it, sometimes you just have to take a chance.