Bully

You know them.

They bring you down.

They ruin your day.

They make the good things bad and the bad things worse.

They are awful.

I know there is a general sentiment among the older generations that kids today are weak. They can get overwhelmed by bullies. They get depressed.

They say things like:

“Why don’t they just fight back?”

 “A lot of successful people were fueled by bullying when they were younger.”

“It will toughen you up.”

What they don’t realize is that bullying is on a whole different level than it has ever been. You used to be able to go home. Leave school. Leave the bullies when the bell rang. Maybe you had to deal with them on the bus, or the walk home. But once you got home, you could escape.

It’s not like that anymore.

The Holistic Nature of Modern Day Bullying

It’s everywhere.

School.

Home.

Day.

Night.

Weekdays.

Weekends.

All day.

Every day.

The internet has allowed bullying to become a monster for anyone who is unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end. Web 2.0 has allowed it to become a living nightmare.

How many times do we need to hear the heart wrenching story of a young boy or girl taking their own life just so they can escape the torment of relentless bullying to realize what we are dealing with here?

The threat is real.

It comes in the form of trolls, fake accounts, hateful words, disgusting jokes, and unrelenting attacks.

The worst part? The bully is someone you know. It is someone you see every day. Someone in class. Someone you interact with. You may not know exactly who it is, but you have an idea, and there is nothing you can do about it. Hell, you may know exactly who it is and still can’t do anything about it.

You know it, and they know it.

No one can step in until “something” happens. That “something” is always physical. It could be a fight. It could be a suicide.

You have to deal with it until you can’t deal with it anymore.

Think about that.

Nothing can happen until you can’t physically and emotionally handle it anymore.

Not until you break.

It is awful just thinking about.

You know you have been there before. It may not have been bullying, but you knew you would break if it continued.

That’s what these kids have to deal with every day.

We love the Hollywood ending to a bullying story, don’t we?

We want it to be like A Christmas Story, where Ralphie gets fed up with Scot Farkus and beats the s*** out of him. The bully crumbles in to a bloody, sniveling mess in the snow. Good. They deserved it.

But it doesn’t always work like that.

It is usually much more devastating. Effecting the lives of the victims of the bullying and their families. Or God forbid, the lives of bystanders that have been watching the bullying and never taking a moment to speak up, or step in.

Reality

Bullies are sad people.

All of the ugliness and darkness that they spew out towards you comes from inside of them. All of that darkness. The hatred. The ugliness. That is them. That is who they are on the inside.

They are the weak ones. The good part is they know it. The bad part is they will never let anyone else know it. But we do. How? Because only hurt people hurt people.

Confident people don’t need to put people down, or talk themselves up, or redirect negativity. They are confident enough in themselves to let the way they live do all the talking.

Confident people don’t need to tell you how great they are and the things they have done. They know you see it. The weak ones are telling everyone about it. You know people like that. It’s a weakness, not strength or success.

Just like a bully.

Bullies feed off of people they think can’t take it. They are weak and think you would be a good victim. It builds them up to break you down. But you can’t let them.

It sounds cliché, but karma is a bitch. People that treat people bad will be brought down. It is inevitable. If they don’t realize the errors in their ways and change their behavior, they will end up all alone. Angry. Weak. Sad. With no one to take all of that anger and sadness out on but themselves.

That is not a good place to be.

They need to be prayed for because they are broken. They want you to feel like them, so they attack you. Why should they be the only unhappy people? As much as you want to hate them, know that all of their ugliness comes from somewhere, and they have to deal with that. Believe that they will.

Strength

This song is for the bullying victim.

Bully (song): iTunes, Google Play, Amazon Spotify

You don’t deserve what you are going through.

You have put up with so much already.

You are “so mother***ing strong.”

It may not feel like it. You may not know it. But I know it. The people around you know it.

You have everything you need to get through this inside you. You have God-given strength that has allowed you to endure all of this up to this point. It can build up everything that has broken down. 

Take the power back from them. They knock it down, you build it back up.

 “When they buried you, they didn’t realize you were a seed.”

Never give up.

Never give in.

Bully

Bully (song): iTunes, Google Play, Amazon Spotify

Your words are, like knives,
 I don’t, don’t think I’m, alright
 I wonder if I’ll make it on my own?

 You build off of, my breakdowns.
 What’s worse is, I let your hatred in
 and slowly break my down,to the ground

Chorus

You pull me under, but I’m still alive and breathing.
 You drag me down, but I’m going to stay right here.
 And watch it fall all to pieces, then build it back up again.

 You bully me, but I am still alive and breathing.
 You push me ‘round, but I’m going to stay right here.
 You never will break my spirit, I’m stronger than anything.

I’ll wear these, scars I have to, shed light for, the others
 struggling, to make it on their own,
 not alone

 not ashamed to, to say that,
 what you’re doing, is not right.
 I know I have the love to make me strong,
 from above

Chorus

you’re words are, like knives, but I,
 I think I’ll, be alright.
 I know that I can make it on my own,
 ’cause I’m so motherfucking strong.

 You build off of, my breakdowns.
 But not today,
 you can take your hateful ways,
 and change before you drown,
 cause they’ll be nobody around

Chorus

Bully (song): iTunes, Google Play, Amazon Spotify

Joey

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The Hardest Thing To Teach

Part of the reason why I write is to force myself to lay out my philosophies on life for my daughter. 

Not to be morbid, but we are all going to die one day. When that is, no one knows. The more I write, the more she will have for later, (if we don’t get the chance to do it while I am still here).

That’s it.

That’s my big secret.

This is all so she has everything in writing. All the advice I want to give her, but might never get the chance.

One Thing

There are certain things I want to teach her, qualities I want her to have. Things I know will allow her to be an awesome adult. Kill it at work, be a great mother, a wonderful wife, and a good human being. Things like: grit, hard work, humility, compassion, insight, reflection, etc. Like any parent, I want my daughter to be amazing.

The thing I want her to learn the most, the one that will allow her to open up all of those other qualities is, I think, the hardest one to accomplish: Not caring what other people think. I mean ZERO regard for what other people think.

Why is this so hard?

Because it is a precarious balance between self-awareness, humility and ego.

She has to be able to not care what people think because she is so self-aware, so observant, so well-thought-out, so intentional, and so sure of herself, that she know exactly what she is doing and why she is doing it, even if it doesn’t necessarily make sense to other people.

Not worry about others’ perception at all.

But it has to come from a place of power not weakness.

Three Types Of Not Caring

1. The Egomaniac

2. The Pre-Emptive Defensive

3. The Rock

The first two are extreme examples. I think most of us fall in to a combination of the two, which usually manifests itself as ego. We shoot ourselves in the foot by acting either too big or too small in a given situation. We are either blindly over-confident or feeble in our abilities, and that eventually bites us in the a**. We either don’t try at all, don’t take the chance when we have the opportunity, don’t speak up when we should, or get in to something we have no business being in and getting b**** slapped. Not literally of course. Well, maybe literally in some cases.

The Egomaniac: You all know people like this. They think they are always right (in a bad way), they can’t handle hearing no, they remove people from their lives that disagree with them, they are narcissistic, probably run through friends regularly, always mad at someone, generally not fun to be around. It’s all about them, all the time.

Being an egomaniac is not synonymous with failing, but how you win is just as important as winning. If you win because you are a prick, and don’t listen to anyone else, you may be successful, but I guarantee you will not be as successful as you could be. These people, generally not self-reflective, not great listeners, which means they are not good collaborators, have a ceiling. They can only go so high because of their ego.

The Pre-Emptive Defensive: The best way I can describe this is the gothic punk rocker in the movie Big Daddy. He walks around in all black, sticking out like a sore thumb, confidence in his stride like he gets it and no one else does, but as soon as Sandler’s character calls him on it, “you’re mad at your father, you’re not mad at me,” his whole façade crumbles in to a pile of tears.

There are people that are confident and really don’t care what you think, and there people that try to push you away at the beginning because they care about what you think so much, they don’t want to have an honest evaluation. This comes in the form of how you dress, like a “gutter” punk for instance, or how you act. The person that always says something inappropriate and then acts like they are too abrasive for the room is doing the same thing as the person with the Mohawk and studded jacket. Push you away so you can’t evaluate them honestly. They don’t want to take the risk of putting themselves out there and being rejected.

Again, a little more difficult to tell that the egomaniac, but if you keep an eye on them you will understand if it comes from confidence or insecurity. One thing that I look at with punk rockers, if you really are an individual and don’t care what people think, why are you dressing exactly like all the other “anti” establishment punk rockers? I want my punks to look like Bad Religion and NOFX. They could be filling your gas tank, building a computer, or teaching at UC Berkeley. You can’t tell because they aren’t wearing a uniform. Or, they have confidence.

The Rock: This is where we all should aspire to be. This is where I want my daughter. This is all about knowing you strengths and weaknesses. You work from your strengths and bring in people to offset your weaknesses. You know exactly who you are. You have a strong moral character, you understand the work involved in success and are willing to do it, you pick a profession that actually fits you not one that sounds good or looks good, and you put yourself in a place of learning and openness to receive the goodness that is coming your way.

Bottom line is you know who you are. This allows you to connect with things that fit you and to pass on things that don’t. You aren’t swayed by the wind or pushed by the ocean because you are a rock. 

You are not going anywhere.

You can listen, evaluate, push away, say no, adjust, learn, respect, and grind. That is a winning combination in any arena.

The Start

It all starts with confidence.

True confidence.

One that is earned through self-reflection, evaluation, discipline, hard work, love, and respect.

One that is earned by taking people and yourself head on, asking the difficult questions, making the difficult sacrifices, and coming out better in the end.

Wouldn’t we all be better because of this?

Shouldn’t we want this for ourselves?

Shouldn’t we want this for our kids?

Then let’s learn it for us so we can give it to them.

It may be the greatest gift you can ever give them: confidence.

Joey

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