No matter who you are, the things you do, and the way you act, there is always going to be someone who dislikes you. You may be the kindest, most genuine person, but even then there is someone out there who makes an enemy of you. Maybe you offended them in some way, or worse, maybe you did nothing at all. Either way, being liked by everyone is utterly impossible as a human being, and it’s also drastically unrealistic. The fact that someone out there in the world despises you might be something difficult for you to deal with, but ultimately, it doesn’t matter. The way you react does.

You make a decision in spite of someone else. You hurt their feelings. You recognize that you hurt their feelings. You apologize. You own up to your mistakes while knowing someone else probably never will. But it isn’t your problem anymore, and in the grand scheme of things, it just doesn’t matter. You go on with your life because the only way is forward. Someone else is stuck in the past, but that doesn’t mean you should be, or that you want to be.

Sometimes it can be hard to truly move on when someone else stands as a constant reminder that this was real, that this happened. They take every opportunity to make you feel bad about yourself, as though they are the only victim. They can’t so much as conceive the possibility that they wronged you time and again because the only time it seems to matter is when they feel you wronged them. But it doesn’t have to be that way. You don’t have to let what this other person does bother you, to let them affect you exactly as much as they want to affect you.

Ultimately what other people do and how they react, no matter how much it may hurt you, is not your problem. It’s something they have to deal with at one point or another. Meanwhile, you can take comfort in the fact that you are ready to move on, despite any inhibiting factors. Someone else isn’t ready to go forward, and may never be ready to go forward because they cling to their bitterness like it’s all they have left. You were ready to move on from the beginning; someone else just wants to drag you backward with them.

Who you are is not a reflection of how others think of you, but of how you carry yourself. What other people say and do hurts and you have every reason to feel that way, especially when it is their sole intention. Take comfort in the fact that you know you would never do the same because you know that grasping to something like this isn’t going to lead you anywhere, and you would rather be anywhere than here. Don’t look back; you're not going that way. Go forward because it’s the only way that matters. Forward is where the past isn’t and where the future has every possibility to offer so much more.