My junior year of high school was spent avoiding one of my fellow classmates. And when I say avoid, I mean literally staying away from him. If I saw him walking down the hallway towards me, I moved to the other side and if at all possible by a teacher until he was far enough away for me to get to my next class. I was a nervous wreck and it was an awful experience; one I hope to never repeat, and something I think no one should ever have to experience.
The funny thing about that year, was had I just faced him instead of running away every time I saw him, my life would have been so much better. It seemed all he wanted to do was put the fear of God in me for something I’d done the year before and then it would have been over. He just wanted to scare me, nothing more, which happened as I stopped by a friend’s house one day after school.
His truck rolled up in front of my car and since my transmission had an issue (I couldn’t put my car into reverse) I had no choice but to face him. After he yelled and cussed and waved his hands around a lot, we ended up playing pool together at my friend’s house and our senior year we became friends and did a lot of activities together. He and two of my buddies even took our dates to prom together.
What I learned from this was a couple of things; one, the longer you run from someone, the worse your life gets and two, facing up to a bully does something to you on the inside; it makes you feel better about yourself. In standing up, you may take a punch to the face, but bruises will disappear, the fear which drives you to run will not leave unless you turn and face the person fear is using to keep you down.
And here is the bottom line about bullies; they are instruments used by fear to keep us in place and stop us from reaching our potential. In the first Captain America movie, Steve Rogers fights a guy much bigger than himself in an alley. He is getting the crap beat out of him, but he continues to stand up and take it saying, “I can do this all day.” When asked later by Doctor Erskine why he wants to fight the Nazis, Steve replies, “I don’t like bullies.” I think this is one of the reason I resonate with the heroes more than the villains in the stories I love, I don’t like bullies either.
We don’t have to deal with bullies just while we’re in school either. They are everywhere and if we let them they will do their best to break us; keeping us from reaching our fullest potential as adults too. Remember, the only power a bully can truly have over you is if you believe what he says. Once you begin to believe what the bully says about you, it’s game over.
Step one in defeating the bullies in your life, don’t listen to what they say. Oh I know you’ll hear the words, but hearing them and believing them are two totally separate things. Know who you are and when their words fly at you, let them bounce off of you like ping pong balls on a concrete floor. It’s always a power thing with bullies, they want you to cower in fear when they are around and if you don’t know who you are, their words can be devastating.
Step two; stand up to them. Like I said earlier, you may take a punch or two, but bruises will heal, a broken spirit takes much more time and effort to be fixed. When you stand up to a bully you will realize something deep on the inside of you which will make you feel triumphant. Usually bullies lose interest in people who stand up to them and will look for another victim. Take a stand and watch them tuck tail and run.
The thing to know about bullies is they are small minded individuals who don’t like their place or station in life. In order to feel better about themselves they have this need to make others feel bad. When you can see bullies for what they are; scared little children on the inside, you will actually feel pity for them. This is the main reason they lash out; to keep people from finding out the truth about them.
If you’re dealing with a bully in your life right now, I sympathize. But at some point or other you have to deal with them, or you will spend your life living in the shadows instead of shining out in the world like the star you are. You can do this, I believe in you!
All In A Knight's Work 