"If someone is mean, harmful, or evil, they're out of my life. I cross them out"

A clear line is being drawn: personal well-being takes precedence over maintaining connections that corrode it. The stance is unapologetically protective, refusing to negotiate with cruelty or harm. There’s no appeal to sentimentality, history, or social obligation, someone who consistently inflicts damage forfeits access. That decisiveness is not hostility; it’s hygiene. It treats relationships the way an editor treats a draft: remove what derails the story.

“Mean, harmful, or evil” outlines a moral spectrum, but the action it triggers is uniform. Meanness can be petty or habitual; harm implies tangible wounds; evil names a pattern of intent. The exact category matters less than the effect: if a presence diminishes dignity, peace, or safety, the solution is subtraction. “I cross them out” compresses an entire process, assessment, judgment, and boundary, into a single stroke. It’s swift, legible, and final.

There’s a pragmatic wisdom here about energy. Attention is finite. Allowing corrosive people to remain is like keeping a leak in a boat and hoping not to sink. Removal isn’t revenge; it’s the refusal to bankroll further damage with one’s time. It’s also an assertion of agency: life is curated, not passively received.

Yet the line also invites discernment. Human beings misstep; patterns reveal character. A harsh word on a hard day is not the same as a practiced habit of belittlement. Forgiveness and boundaries can coexist, repair is possible where accountability and change are real. The principle is not cruelty but clarity: compassion doesn’t require proximity, and empathy doesn’t require endurance.

Ultimately the ethic is sovereign self-respect. Protect your mind, your heart, your future. Keep what nourishes, remove what corrodes. The act of crossing out is a commitment to the story you intend to live, leaving space on the page for people who write in ink that strengthens rather than stains.