We all know those people, and to be honest most of us are these people at some point. Spending our lives putting people down by bringing ourselves up. A sick, twisted, immature social mercantilism that just keeps happening.

And keep in mind, this isn’t a personal attack. This is a description of something I see every day in the hallway, in text conversations, and all over the internet.

It’s just great that you smoke, and that you hang out with your cool friends who smoke, and that you did all these awesome risky stereotypically teenager things last night. Guess what? You’re definitely not better than anyone for it. Don’t try to pretend that just because you don’t exactly think about what you do, have to rebel against the man, and are willing to sign away your future that you’re better than me.

Oh, you got in trouble with the police? Oh, you were out breaking the law and it was so hilarious when you got busted? Oh, wow, you’re bad to the bone. Next time you rob a bank, I hope you come to me right away to brag about your rebelliousness.

Just as bad are the people who spend their whole lives chasing a statistic. You beat me by one point on the ACT? Wow, I’m glad you spent your whole life preparing for that one point. You beat me on that test? You really didn’t need to share that. And you’re not a better person for doing so. In fact, I would argue that you’re a worse person for basing your success in life on who knows how well you did.

Maybe I’m wrong that you think you’re better than me. But that’s just a harmful way to live your life, to yourself and to everyone around you. Honestly, just be happy with yourself. Don’t tell everyone about your rebellion or academic success. Why did you do those things in the first place? To impress everyone, or to be a better person?

My point isn’t that we should put ourselves down, or keep strictly to ourselves. Because bragging doesn’t have to be bad. It just usually is. After all plenty of people do plenty of respectable things all the time. The problem is these people also don’t care much to share. Because they take their joy from inside themselves. They’re happy with how they feel about their own achievements. But sometimes it’s not bad to let people know that you’ve done something really respectable. And I don’t mean a good score on a standardized test. I mean something really meaningful. There are plenty of awards out there, but who’s to say they have one for some of the most incredible things people can do. Maybe the sport you’re incredible at isn’t very popular. Maybe the instrument you can play better than almost anyone, barely anyone as heard of. And that doesn’t mean your achievements are any less than a football player or a violin or trumpet player.

Bragging isn’t essentially a bad thing. Not in it’s core. It’s technically just about getting respect from your peers. But it’s realistically and societally become about lying, putting other people down, exaggerating, and bragging about things you shouldn’t have done in the first place. Regrets are fine to have. Don’t stretch them into lies and brag about them.