Do You Unintentionally Hurt Others?

Right now, I’ve just returned from a friend’s gathering. Sitting in my dedicated office chair, I light a stick of agarwood incense. The calming scent relaxes me as I gaze out the window at the island’s late twilight. My room is dimly lit — dull and sluggish, much like my current mood. I lean back in my chair, and waves of thoughts surge in like the tide.

I replay the gathering in my mind — a casual afternoon tea initiated by a friend returning from out of town. The venue was an upscale hotel lounge, but oddly, the booths were set up in a hallway — luxurious yet oddly confining, catching us all off guard. One of our late-arriving girlfriends kept double-checking with me: “Are you sure it’s here?” To her, it looked more like a hotel check-in area than a proper dining lounge. After some brief confusion, we followed the unspoken rule of “we’re already here” and took our seats, settling into casual conversation.

The woman sitting next to me is one of my closest friends in recent years. We talk about everything, love sharing, and often whisper to each other even in groups. This time was no different — we were quietly discussing another couple from our circle. It was gossip, yes, but we both tacitly avoided raising our voices. That unspoken balance was abruptly broken when her husband directly asked what we were whispering about. Caught off guard, neither of us knew how to respond. After a brief silence, my friend jokingly scolded him, brushing off the moment with playful annoyance.

It wasn’t until much later, sitting here in the dark, that I realized — whispering during a social gathering is actually quite impolite. The things we were saying weren’t secrets; they were objective, public facts. Why not just say them openly? Maybe, deep down, I was indulging in the closeness between my friend and me, trying to subtly flaunt our bond — “We’re besties, and we’re tight.” The thought makes my cheeks burn with shame.

Human relationships are truly fragile and delicate. Often, it’s not the clearly labelled “bad people” who hurt us in life, but ordinary people who have no intention of hurting others yet struggle to balance the world and themselves. Some use the excuse of ‘it’s for your own good’ to interfere in your personal affairs. Others remain silent at awkward moments, pushing the atmosphere to a freezing point. And then there are those like me who love to boast about their small circle of friends, ‘isolating’ others in the process.

These harmless, gentle people around us don’t shout or act out, but they always step back when they should be close, remain silent when they should speak, and hide themselves in what is ‘correct’ and “proper” when they should embrace. Everyone ‘has no ill intent,’ yet no one reaches out. The pain under this silence is sharper than any argument.

Similarly, the ‘show-off’ hidden in casual conversations among friends can also become a knife piercing others’ hearts. This reminds me of another friend of mine who often complains about her husband’s absence from family life. As her careless friend, I would often casually mention the pleasant weekends I spent with my husband during casual chats. Every time this happened, her subtle change in expression, her slightly bitter smile, and her sighing response made me realise too late that I had said too much. But the next time we met, I still hadn’t learned my lesson.

We are all harmless people, yet we have all hurt others.

It might be an offhand remark spoken without thought, an innocent glance at someone else, gossiping quietly at a party, or a casual gesture… We were taught from a young age to be “good people,” but as we read more books and make more friends, we realise that the bar for being a good person is too high. Modern society doesn’t create an environment where good people are rewarded for their goodness; and the gravitational pull between people not only attracts them to each other but also leads to mutual compression and violence. For ordinary people, simply maintaining kindness and living an honest, straightforward life is already difficult enough.

Have you, in your own life, unknowingly become a prisoner of evil?

I greatly admire the Korean female writer Choi Eun-young, who once wrote in her book: ‘I want to escape these idle mouths and frivolous finger-pointing, to go far away, very far away. I want to act alone; I believe my personal actions will not harm anyone. I want to be harmless; I do not want to cause others pain.’

This is also my dream — to be a harmless person.

If you, like me, have also realised the difficulty of this goal at this moment, then first become an honest person, even if you might hurt others.