I will not be bullied

My timid nature of the past created the impression by others that I was a soft target for bullying. While I deeply desired to become more assertive, I was naïve enough to hold back as I considered how my reaction might hurt the feelings of those who bullied me. Yet, I soon realised that my failure to express my true feelings created the false impression that I enjoyed being on the receiving end of the name calling, taunting and public humiliation.

Once I found my voice and articulated by disdain, the expression on the face of the other was nothing short of spectacular. It was as if the individual could not believe my audacity for standing up to them. I use the word “them”, because bullies rarely operate in isolation. They find their warped sense of superiority from a company of others who are equally insecure. Bullies are often in the company of the mediocre. They tend to prey on those whom they consider a threat to their false sense of entitlement. When they fail to humiliate you in public, they tend to do character assassinations of others behind closed doors or by whispering falsehoods about others through corridor conversations. They know how to poison the well until everyone avoids you when you come to drink from the office water cooler. 

Children who are bullies merely transition into professional adult bullies. They devote a lifetime of their existence to making others feel bad. They somehow believe that the world cannot exist without their opinion or that they owe it to world to impose their crooked views on others. As much as one would like to believe that all people can change, bullies rarely change their spots. Their promises to change and their apologies almost never result in permanent transformation. So, while they can smell fear in others or know who is intimidated by them, it does not require much to identify them from within a crowd.

I have learned that not everything in life is meant to be a fight. One needs to know how to choose your battles. There are moments when one must forego the immediate gratification of winning in order to gain strategic control over the psyche of those who oppose you. It is when they believe that they are on a winning streak and gloat over a temporary triumph, that one needs to simply walk away. An opportunity however will present itself and then you will be required to stand your ground. Asserting oneself strengthens the muscles to one’s inner being. I firmly believe that by the time one asserts oneself, thought has gone into what is said and your words are coated with logic which has been prepared in the silent chambers of reflection. Words have power. However, when we fail to consider the magnitude of this powerful weapon, we have failed to understand the different ways in which to destabilise our fiercest foe. We should not quiver at the hearing of the insults coming from the mouth of Goliath. Often the slingshot of your mouth is filled with power to bring the menacing of Goliaths to their knees. 

You and I were not created to be trampled upon. We were not made to look at others from below or to fear anyone. Our existence here requires of us to look others squarely in the eye and to speak to all of humanity as equals. When others make us contemporary slaves and chain us to the dreadful standard of their own making, that we cannot thrive. And if we are not thriving then it simply means that we are not (yet) fully alive.