I’ll be the first to admit it— I screw stuff up. I've hurt people in so many ways: by ignoring them, saying the wrong things, participating in girl drama, and generally falling into the trap of only thinking about myself. Sometimes we all can be a little egocentric.

It’s okay to think about your needs sometimes. Sometimes, someone treats you wrongly and you fight back. It’s a lose—lose situation but still, you want to tear someone down the way that they’ve done to you.

The thing is, when do we stop hurting each other, and more importantly, ourselves, in this circular quest to push ourselves up the ladder, feel better, or “put someone in their place?” It’s really easy to become lost in rage or disappointment when someone treats us unfairly. It’s even easier to allow ourselves to become enraged when we hurt another person and they react negatively. We wonder why they don’t forgive us, why we didn’t do it differently, why things turned out so poorly.

We keep hurting on the inside and the pain that we’ve caused others eats us alive. We ignore them and we feel horrible when they pop up on social media. We say negative things about a coworker or a friend and when they say “hi” to us we feel ashamed. It’s easy to let ourselves become affected by causing pain directly or indirectly, knowingly or unknowingly, to that person.

Why do we continue to hurt others and act like it’s okay? Everyone suffers from the blow, and no one gets ahead. Friendships can be demolished, relationships squandered, and just as importantly our own self-esteem shattered from feeling such negative emotions.

I have a solution for us, though. Instead of participating in negative situations, be honest with others and yourself. I mentioned a bunch of the negative qualities in my article last week that may make you feel out of balance with others in your life. The best way to manage your own hurt is to think about how you might be hurting others, and admit to it.

Stop hiding from responsibility and start thinking about the people you love in your life. We aren’t perfect; we never will be, and that’s fine. But think for a moment about the times you’ve let yourself down by being unfair to another person’s emotions. Choose to be the person that cares more about others than herself and lift others up. Choose to stop letting yourself hurt over hurting others.