Who or what is a bully? In my opinion, a person who tries to make himself feel superior to another human being by exercising his power and influence due to that person’s perceived physical or mental weakness can be considered a bully.
Bullies exist everywhere, on all levels, in all societies, wherever you go, and they can take the form of physical or mental abuse. This is because not everyone is confident in themselves and their own abilities. Some people basically lack some finer attributes, such as a positive self-image, and feel the need to prevail over a neighbor whom they believe is unlikely to retaliate. It is an exercise to stimulate the ego to which they consciously or unconsciously surrender because we live in a world that is very competitive and egocentric and where hierarchical structures are ingrained in all societies.
A stalker is basically a coward because he usually hides behind wealth, power, and position or whatever label he feels important to him.
Bullies also like to hide behind anonymity. I recently observed in “6 Minutes Medicine” a medical forum post on the Internet, the writers who made jokes and mocking comments on the articles and the people who commented on them all disappeared after the editorial policy changed to publishing full names . of all commenters. No more initials of name or pseudonym were allowed. This struck me as a brilliant move to give dignity to a dignified medical publication.
A stalker will try to attack you physically or mentally to make you feel inferior or worthless. I could choose your race, religion, color, etc. They may call you with all kinds of names, etc. However, it is the way you react to the bully that will either encourage or discourage their behavior.
Now if you feel offended and affected by the stalker’s action, you will surely interpret it as a success in your approach because that is exactly what you have set out to do.
My advice to anyone who is being bullied is not to give the bully the satisfaction that they are succeeding. You have to react in a way that doesn’t give the bully that satisfaction. You have to learn to greet the stalker each time in a friendly way without showing any offense with an equally offensive name, and walk away. Once you can master your own reaction to the bully’s action and respond in the way that I have described, you will be surprised to find a positive transformation in your relationship with the bully.
Because it is an ego-oriented exercise, what bullies don’t like is public exposure. So if you are being bullied and keeping it to yourself, you are only inviting more trouble for yourself. What you should do is never put things aside. What you need to do is change the ways and means to counter the action of the bully and expose his behavior to other people around him. You may even have to go to a higher authority if necessary. The main thing is to get your message across that you will not be trampled on in any way.
Sitting alone and suffering in silence will not help you solve your problem. You have to realize that it is you who has the power to change a person’s behavior with your own action.
Consumerism is distorting people’s perceptions and it can be seen that people are becoming more and more self-centered and intolerant. In consumerism, the customer is always right. One indulges in the desires of the individual ego, so that one grows up thinking that he has all rights and no responsibilities. Clearly, the decline of moral, ethical and religious influences can be seen. No one wants to accept responsibility for their own actions anymore and there is little regard for the feelings of our fellow men.
Politicians talk about law and order, but all they care about is buying votes from the public by appealing to their selfish instincts. Yes, they are very good at making laws. They think that by making laws they will bring law and order into society. How naive can one get? They should know that the foundations for achieving law and order must be established early in life’s development. If we don’t have discipline at home and in the classroom, how can we have law and order in society?
The values of how to behave and the consideration of other people’s feelings should be taught at home and in the classroom. Children are not born with knowledge; you have to teach them these values. It seems that parents and teachers have abandoned their responsibilities and state laws are not helping them.
One can see violence and aggressive behavior increasing in society. There is an increase in youth violence, domestic violence, and criminal activity. Law and order are breaking down. When there is youth violence we have to use violence to contain them, but we are not allowed to discipline children when they misbehave when they are young. Discipline (violence) is not allowed because it is supposed to be psychologically harmful and bad for them. How naive and contradictory can one get? It means that it is not okay to use ‘violence’ (discipline) against children when they are young, but it is okay to use violence when they are older.
What is our government’s response to all this harassment, increased social violence, and criminal behavior? Do you think the answer is to make more laws and increase penalties? Do you think building more and more prisons is the answer? Do you think increasing the number of members of our police force is the answer? Obviously these are repair work. It is like trying to close the door after the horse has run off.
Unless our politicians can begin to address the issue of how parents are managing and coping with the first formative years of a child’s life and the ways and means to help them, I can foresee more problems in the future for society. There are many dysfunctional families in society and they are increasing. They are going to produce more and more dysfunctional children. They need help.
The foundations of law and order are created in the first five years of life, where positive or negative perceptions are created and developed and conditioning occurs.
If we ignore this fact and do nothing about it, society must prepare for a more violent future. Today, we are living in a fool’s paradise, where everyone has rights and no one seems to have responsibilities. Yes, unless we are aware of it, regardless of the feelings of our fellow human beings, we all have the potential to become bullies.