At some point in life, we would come to a realization that after all this while, we could be the culprit of our own self-made tragedies. We have assigned starring roles to people who no longer deserve a place in our lives, given them priority when the focus should perhaps have been on how to work on ourselves in terms of career or education.

Heartbreaks may not occur only between a couple. It could even occur within a family or between friends. However, based on my observations, the common root of heartbreak would be disappointment.

You break your own heart when you put yourself in scenarios which would eventually lead to disappointment. You break your own heart when you put trust in someone who wouldn't reciprocate.

I often wondered if there would be a foolproof way from being heartbroken. However, I eventually realized that that would sound totally ridiculous and ironic. Everyone will be heartbroken in some way or other and there is absolutely no way to prevent that from happening.

What we can do is to learn to protect ourselves from unnecessary heartbreaks. As a matter of fact, we can't escape even when we do everything to avoid it.

The least we could is to stop breaking our own hearts, which unfortunately is a mistake committed by most. Well, would you like to have more evidence?

You break your own heart when you base your self-worth off others' perspectives. They will continuously throw thoughtless hurtful remarks at you while you would have every single word burned inside your brain.

You break your own heart when you allow another person to hurt your pride. Pride is always important and it's the core of our self-confidence.

You break your own heart when you allow yourself to be disrespected. Mutual respect is nevertheless important in any relationship and it should never be based on age or seniority. Otherwise, it wouldn't exactly be genuine. Show respect when it's due and learn how to stand up for yourself because nobody else would do so.

You break your own heart when you don't throw in the towel at the right time. There is always a difference between giving up easily and holding on till enough is enough. For the latter, you would only continuously face heartbreak if you harbor expectations for the wrong person and don't know when to leave.

The most fortunate aspect of having a heartbreak is a valuable life lesson. You would know what you can settle for and how much you can actually give without compromising your personal baseline.

As cliche as it may sounds, once bitten twice shy. This is just the beginning and there could be many more heartbreaks to come, however just don't break your own heart. It will never be worth it.