By Sarah Dowell

Someone’s talking to you. You don’t know what to say, but you feel like you need to say something so there isn’t that painful, awkward, uncomfortable silence.

You need to do something, and you need to do it now. Their subject wasn’t happy, was it?

“I’m sorry.”

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That just flowed out so easily; it felt like it belonged there, and it felt like it belonged in the “I’m sorry” world.

It felt like the right thing to say, but now it’s starting to become habit.

Every time something isn’t going right in your life, your friend’s life, or anyone’s life at all, it’s “I’m sorry.”

Why are you apologizing for something that’s out of your control? Why do you feel a constant need to apologize for things that you didn’t do?

Truthfully, it becomes extremely damaging to tell anyone “I’m sorry” so frequently.

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An apology is something that is meant for when you believe you’ve done something wrong or that you think you could have fixed the situation.

Saying “I’m sorry” is accepting responsibility for the action that’s harming the other person. Saying “I’m sorry” damages your psyche because you genuinely start to believe that something is going wrong.

Stop apologizing for the things that you didn’t do.

You can’t keep apologizing every time someone is upset.

Stop apologizing every time something’s out of your control. You’re harming yourself, your mind, and your lifestyle.

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It’s just creating a new anxiety, a new timidity, and a new laziness.

You’re either genuinely believing that you’ve done something wrong, or you just don’t care enough to make the correct decision anymore.

You don’t care enough to make the decision to do something, to feel something more for that person.

You’ve developed a cop-out. You’ve developed something that’s just a bad habit.

Saying “I’m sorry” to every single thing that someone is saying to you? That’s a cop out, and that’s a horrible habit.

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It hurts you, it hurts them, it hurts everyone involved, so if you stop and think about it, is saying “I’m sorry” right now really worth it? Or is there something more that you think needs to be done?

I think that you could fix this.

I think that it would be better if you could find something new, and listen to what the person is saying. Listen to why the person is hurting.

And for once? Don’t say, “I’m sorry.”

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Sarah Dowell is a writer whose work has appeared on Unwritten, YourTango, and Thought Catalog. She's passionate when writing about helping people love themselves and finding true happiness.

This article was originally published at Unwritten. Reprinted with permission from the author.