First of all, let’s categorize this as one of those rants similar to Peter Griffin ‘Grind’s my Gears’ moments.

I may only be 21-years-old, but so far I have been introduced to many different types of people. Some good, some bad; some people whom I see myself keeping in touch with for many years, and some whom I wish I never have to see on a day-to-day basis.

I do believe that everything happens for a reason, and thus, that everyone you meet legitimately brings something valuable to your life. This value could come in the form of a life lesson, a new personal relationship, or just a helping hand at a difficult moment in your life.

So, that being said, I don’t really regret meeting any of the 'bad' people in my life; I simply see those encounters as a life lesson in disguise. From each of these situations, I can find some sort of emotional and psychological depth to form a new way of thinking for myself.

Basically, when bad people influence my life, I use that experience to continue to grow as a human being and I just say to myself, “Don’t do what that person did. They’re a jerk. Don’t be a jerk.”

One of my professors once said something such as: ‘I wish that when students were younger they were instructed not only in speaking courses, but also in listening courses.’

Somewhere along the way we lost sight of paying close attention and investing legitimate empathy into another individual’s situation, and we became focused on constantly ‘one-upping’ each other. But why?

Why are we so obsessed with outshining everyone that we meet? Why are we so focused of proving that we have something even better or even more shocking or even worse to say rather than simply listening to another human soul? Why do we so fantasize the thought of always being the center of attention? Why must we insist on crying wolf every time we hear a rustling in the bushes?

Now, I am not saying that if you do have something to say or contribute to suppress it and never speak up. It is appropriate to relate someone else’s personal situation to your own life, however, there is no need to always turn the focus onto yourself.

By doing that, you are immediately discrediting what the other individual has, and has brought to the situation. You should not always resort to one-upping someone just because you want to hear the sound of your own voice.

News flash: not everyone needs or wants to hear you speaking in the first place.

I believe that a lot of people need to take a course in listening up and shutting up. Yes, you may actually have something to contribute to the situation, but it should never come in the form of undermining the thoughts and life of someone else.

Lend a hand, lend an ear, maybe say something like, ‘Hey, I’m not trying to detract from your life, and I’m sorry to hear that this happened to you, but something similar happened to me before and here’s how I handled it…’

It's as simple as that.

Maybe it's the savagery of the 2016 presidential race, maybe it's something separate entirely, but the way we as a society operate has changed, and not for the better.

We continually default to beating someone down or defeating someone in order to prove our worth. That's not how functioning human relationships work. In that sense, again, you’re just a jerk.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t speak up for yourself or raise your voice when the time is right or when you legitimately have something to contribute. I'm not trying to get the world to sit around a campfire singing, "Kumbaya," while we hold each other's hands.

But the second that you believe that you’re more important than someone else for the sake of simply, ‘being better’, is the moment in which you lose all potential value.

More breaking news: In the words of David McCullough, "You’re not special."