How long have you been silent about the inhumane acts of others? How long have you been imprisoned by the fists of your pretend-to-be friends? How long have you kept yourself from telling the truth, that you feel sick about your false fortresses?
When was the last time you were bullied?
The Department of Education reported that there were 1,700 cases of bullying in schools for the year 2013 and 2014. According to the Anti-Bullying Act of 2012, bullying is characterized as the act of any severe and/or repeated use of one or more students of written, verbal, electronic, physical, and/or a combination directed to another entity, which results in reasonable fear in physical or emotional harm.
Some of the examples of bullying include:
- unwanted physical contact (punching, kicking, shoving, pushing, slapping, tickling, headlocks, inflicting school pranks, teasing, fighting, use of available objects as weapons)
- any act that damages the victims psyche or emotional well-being
- any slanderous statement or accusation that causes the victim undue emotional stress
- bullying done via the use of technology
These actions decrease the students’ capability to cope with norms, making them unaware about how to correct themselves in the future. Bullying counteracts the fundamental things a person dreams for his society. It resembles pulling a well down and letting it sit above the surface. Bullying may cause instability in a person’s encounters.
At par with these actions, bullying creates a hostile environment in the youth’s growth, infringes the rights of the victims, and disrupts the school environment’s order and processes materially and substantially. As concerned youth for the development of the country, this leaves us a question: is there a way to counteract this problem? Is there a method to minimize cases of bullying?
While we think there are things that may hinder the hope of our unfortunate youth who are bullied, there is a bright side.
Understand both the bully and the bullied
Think of the last time you felt insecure about yourself because you are extremely unhealthy and your peers start to humiliate you. You start to lose weight until you become extremely thin, and once you’ve obtained what you want, you start teasing people who were like you before. We tease because someone teased us beforehand. No one hurts until you have hurt them. This behavior pays the pain forward, however, and not back to the original bullies.
Communicate: Listen, talk, exchange thoughts
A bully may not have friends, and he wants to gain them by proving something, whether by hurting someone or humiliating someone. Sometimes we need to talk with someone about our problems because we cannot carry the world by ourselves. No man is an island, so let us not wallow in loneliness. We should talk with someone if possible. We should minimize keeping things solely to ourselves.
Counteract bullying with kindness
Who knows if a bully is abused at home, or being hit hard because of his failures? We are all different in our own little ways, and we need to experience being loved before we can love. How can we perform without even the knowledge of it? It is understandable, therefore, that bullies lack rapport with their companions or family. We must show them the loving kindness that we can inculcate in their hearts. We should love our friends, but more than that, we should love our enemies more.
Being a fortress amid weakness is the epitome of the youth we should see in the next generation. Let us stop being bullies, and let us not allow ourselves to be humiliated by people. We should learn to take silence as an opportunity to reflect on ourselves, and contemplate on the things we limit only for changing. It is not necessary to change one’s whole self to gain people’s trust. As we grow to be more mature youth of this generation, we take action for the people around us. If we are able to perform these things with rapport and courage, there will be no doubt we have fortresses amid weakness.
How about you? How will you take the opportunity to act?