Depending on where you are in your life, you may have heard and uttered many motivational phrases. I want to start by saying that none of them worked. Small rushes of adrenaline or the little happiness you might get from those words will not add anything significant in the long run; on the contrary, they might even harm you.

Imagine someone you love feeling sad, and if you genuinely care, you feel a bit sad too, albeit not as much. To motivate them, you start using classic motivational words like, "It will pass," "It will get better," "I promise." All these words are meaningless; they allow you to indulge in self-satisfaction rather than making the other person happy. The one satisfied here is not the person you care about but yourself. Offering these words for a situation you don't know the outcome of allows you to indulge in masturbation of conscience momentarily as the other person might seem momentarily happier. These promised words can either turn into reality or not when events unfold. If they do, adopting an attitude like, "Didn't I tell you?" only contributes to the guilt of emotions you've engaged in. In a scenario where they don't come true, you're left in a situation where the other person is still sad, and now you are trying to console them with different cliché phrases like, "It's okay," "It's not the end of the world," and so on. I am writing this not to attack anyone but because I've realized how harmful this is, something I've done many times myself. We all have committed an emotional offense, and none of us are putting a stop to it.

Until today, just to stop the person in front of me from crying and to make myself happy, I have used these phrases many times. Unintentionally, this behavior I displayed caused more harm to some of my loved ones. What I promised didn't come true, and what I said wasn't the end of the world made them feel like it was. I apologize to my friends and family who have suffered because of what I've done. I couldn’t comprehend how valuable it is just to remain silent and listen. Saying nothing is better than committing this offense, but I failed to realize that. I apologize to all of you. Friends and family, I apologize for making you feel this way.

Committing this offense doesn't mean it hasn't been done to me, and it doesn't mean it hasn't been done to you. I believe as a society, we have accepted and internalized this. Everyone acts as if we have mutual scores that, when reached at zero, balance out, and it feels like we keep living it as we experience it. This ruthless behavior should end now. Let your loved ones be sad, be there for them. Feel sad, but do not expect motivation from others. It's okay to feel sad, and everything will eventually end.