Just One Joey: highschool

Monday, December 5, 2016

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

Friday, August 19, 2016

Success In School At Any Age

Kindergarten to senior year.

Undergrad to a doctoral program.

This is for students of any age.

This is for their parents.

The Key To Success In School.

Act as if you never went at all.

Aaahhhh, me squeeze me?

Aah, bacon powder?

(Wayne’s World quote. I’m 37. If that wasn’t obvious by the reference.)

That’s right, I said it.

Act like you never went to school.

I am not talking about after you graduate (although that will work too), I mean DURING school.

Act like it never happened.

Act like it is not happening.

The Problem With School

The biggest issue in education is the students’ mindset. Well, it’s the parents’ mindset that gets transferred to the kid and becomes their mindset.

Still with me?

Moving on.

Is education is the most important thing to develop en route to success? Me thinks yes. At least top 3.

Is school education? Yes and no.

This is where the mindset issue comes in.

School gives you a baseline of information, but Education (capital E) is much bigger. It is everything you learn in order to live, earn money, and thrive. My point? College gives you a piece of paper that says you have been successful in retaining information and regurgitating it at least at a 70% level. 60% level if it is out of your major in some schools. Once you get that piece of paper, the thing your parents have been focused on since you were 3 years old in preschool, you can do anything, right? It’s the key to your future, right? This piece of paper has been the goal of your life up to this point.

Now you can go earn a living, right?

How many of you college graduates went “Holy s***” while still in your cap and gown?

Me too!

This is not to say that school is not important. Until companies figure out how to filter through applicants based on abilities and potential instead of pieces of paper (at least initially), it will remain necessary. (On a side note, if you are part of the 0.01% that can be ultra-successful without getting your foot in the door with a degree, more power to you. I am not.)

For the 99.99% of us:

The Solution

If you act as if you didn’t go to school, then you will focus your attention on learning things on your own. You will make it a point of connecting with people in your potential profession, and pick their brains on the steps necessary to become a professional x, y, or z. This is how it used to be done. Go directly to the source to get all the info you need.

Most of them will tell you is school. You can say, “No duh, I am talking about everything else. I want to learn about the profession as a whole.” That is where the real knowledge will come. The more people you talk to, the more you research on your own, the more you learn, the more ass you will kick once you get the piece of paper saying you are now free to kick ass.

School is school.

Education is all up to you.

Imagine if you were in middle school or high school, and instead of waiting for the knowledge to come to you in school, you went out and got it? Instead of picking your butt, or building up your Musical.ly following (unless that is your business, and you are already monetizing it, then more power to you) you went out and met people? Started building up a rapport with professional adults?

Making connections, learning in a real world sense of the word? You could be killing it by the time you learn how to drive! Imagine that!

Think of a college student that spent all four years in college studying for their degree, but meeting professionals in their potential field at conferences, during coffee meetings, or internships so when they graduated that had a crystal clear understanding of what that profession is and how to be successful at it. They will have a goal, a game plan and a clear course of action.

While everyone else is moving back home, being confused, getting a job they could have gotten out of high school, you are dominating.

Wouldn’t that be amazing?

I know!

That was basically a rhetorical question. If you said “no” I would have puked.

For Parents And Students

It doesn’t matter how old you are. This can be applied at any age. I tell my daughter all the time, the way to be successful is to learn more outside of school than you do in school. Education is key, but school is not “that” key. It will get you in to the arena, but you are on your own from there.

You are the only key you will ever need. It’s best to learn that now.

Think of it this way:

Have you ever heard of a graduate from any top school (NYU, Stanford, Yale, Harvard, etc.) get handed a bag of money when they walked out of graduation ceremony? Exactly! Why? Because that’s when the real education starts, the real work. No one gives a f*** what school you graduated from if you suck at your job. Harvard graduates work next to UCSD (go Tritons!) grads, that work next to Middle Of Nowhere Texas grads, all at the same company. Your real job is to kick ass. I don’t care what your title is.

But what if we started it earlier?

What if we started today?

What if the future was now?

What if we looked at school for what it is, a “normal” factory (which is what they used to call it, because it was designed to create “normal” people to work in factories, remember that), and looked at every hour outside of school as the real learning time?

What kinds of experiences could we have?

What kind of knowledge would we gain?

How much more prepared for life would we be?

I don’t care how old you are, start learning. Start educating yourself. Interview one person a week that works in a field you may want to work in. Contact companies, ask them about skills that they find important, then start practicing them.

Nothing can stop you except for you.

(This will help you get over your fear: article)

It’s time to look at school like it never happened and elevate your success. It all starts with you. It all starts with looking at yourself as the one that will get you to your best. No degree will do it. No college will ever guarantee success. That’s all on you.

Ever wonder why so many people try to get in to the top schools every Fall? Because the individuals that went to those schools kicked ass once they got out and made it look good. Was it the school? Hell no. Maybe a couple teachers here or there helped guide them, but it is the individual that makes the difference. The graduates make the school. Don’t forget that.

You make the difference.

Get out there and start learning.

Right after the bell rings.