Tag: different

The Moral of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

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“You can tell a man’s vises by his friends, his virtues by his enemies.” – Ben Domenech.

Often times, bullies attack your virtues. They make fun of your good qualities and make them seem as something bad- a defect that you should be ashamed of.

For example, if a person is kind and gentle, they may be bullied because they’re seen as weak or mistaken for being a suck-up. If a kid has a talent and is proud of his talent, it’s likely that he’s accused of showboating, then bullied and his talent devalued.

If anything should remind you of your value, even in the midst of bullying and persecution, it’s the story of Rudolph. His red nose made him different from the other reindeer and they bullied and persecuted him for it. Even the adult reindeer were mean to Rudolph.

But the very characteristic the other reindeer scorned and made fun of was the thing that would be of the most value later.

In the beginning, no one realized the beauty of Rudolph’s nose. But, in the end, that nose only promoted Rudolph to the lead reindeer to guide Santa’s sleigh through terrible weather conditions and saved Christmas from being cancelled.

Again, the thing that bullies tolerate, or more appropriately, denigrate, may later be the very thing people celebrate. You may be bullied and friendless now,  but don’t be so quick to condemn yourself to “the island of misfit toys.”

Why? Because Rudolph, Hermie the misfit elf who wanted to be a dentist, and the misfit toys eventually found acceptance and love.

And the thing about you that people ridicule and deem different now could later be the very thing that launches you to unimaginable heights!

The show is a children’s Christmas classic but it sends a very grown-up message.

Don’t give up. Stand strong. Value yourself even if others don’t. You don’t know what God has in store for you down the road.

With knowledge comes empowerment!

You Should Never Apologize for Being Different

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I’ve never been one to follow blindly. Never been one to conform without knowing what motives any authority figure had behind telling me to do so. I’m one to question everything. Always have been. And I’ve always done critical thinking and plenty of reading and research. That’s just me.

Through the years, this has gotten me into a lot of trouble. I’ve taken a lot of heat and lost many friends (or people I thought who were friends) for it. And it’s probably why I was bullied all those years in school.

But that’s okay. In fact, I embrace all of it!

I’d rather stand for something than fall for anything people feed me. I’m true to my beliefs and convictions and I’m not afraid of losing a few people over it. And I’m proud of that.

I’m not a follower.

No one ever said being a free-thinking person was easy and I don’t expect it to be.
And when people get pissed and withdraw friendship over my choice to question a narrative, I only see it as a weeding out of fake friends and people who aren’t meant to be in my circle.

To know who your real friends are, you must be your true authentic self, question status quos, trends, and popular narratives, then call BS when you see or hear it.

And I’m willing to accept it and everything that comes with it.

Bullies Intentionally Select Certain Peers for Targets

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Anyone, who is a victim of bullying knows all too well, the feeling of bewilderment, the confusion…. the questions- The “What did I do wrong?”, “What is it about me?” or “What do they treat me so horrible?” If you are a target, allow me to answer these questions for you.

First, you did nothing wrong!

Second, there is NOTHING wrong with you!

And third, they treat you wrong because of something that is within THEM! Not YOU!

I want you to understand that bullies purposely select their victims. They know exactly what they’re doing and why they’re doing it. Remember that bullies are nothing but sniveling little cowards. And they select anyone they don’t believe will fight back. Or these who achieve great things.

School bullies feel weak. They always pick those they think are slow, kids with hearts of gold, who would never hurt a fly, children who are disabled, mentally handicapped or mentally ill, youngsters who are quiet and reserved and children who have what is perceived to be a physical flaw (overweight, underweight, eyeglasses, braces, or disfigured from accidents).

In school, bullies may select other classmates at random to see how they react. If a potential victim stands up to the bully and tells them off, the bully will then slink away with their tail between their legs. They will then search for someone else until they find the victim who responds how they want them to (cries, ignores them, walks away, runs, tattles, etc.)

Workplace bullies feel threatened. They pick coworkers who are intelligent, competent, and well-liked by others. They pick them because the exceptional workers are the people who make them look bad.

Close-up of woman in black T-shirt is cracking her knuckles gesturing willful and ready for doing something; or in another side; the bad behavior when in tension; concept of health care and medical.

Through their excellent work, the victims hold a mirror up to the bullies (and everyone else) at work, forcing them to see their own pathetic reflections. They unwittingly expose their weaknesses and their incompetency by their successes, accomplishments, and impeccable work ethic. They also make bullies feel overshadowed.

The only way a bully can feel powerful and that they measure up is to bring the victim down or have a victim to use as a punching bag. If they don’t have that target, they feel less than and will go to the ends of the earth to find one. Realize that bullies can’t get power through a meritocracy because they have zero redeeming qualities. So, they bully others and that’s what gives them power.

At work, bullies will often select the brightest high performers and achievers.

School boy angel with wings and halo concept for being clever, good, success in education or smug

Once the bully finds his/her chosen victim, they target that person, sometimes for years until that person either changes schools or workplaces, moves, or dies. Then, once again, the bully will be on the hunt for a replacement victim.

I want you to understand that bullying at any age is born out of cowardice, jealousy, and insecurity. A bully is a pitiful person. Only a lowdown, uneducated, sad, and pathetic person has to have another person to harm. Think about it! School bullies pick on kids they perceive as weak! They stoop so low as to pick on disabled kids! And they do it to feel better about themselves.

Workplace bullies select someone who outperforms them. Only a loser scumbag creep does that! A zero! A sick moron!

So have the courage to call the bully OUT on these things! I realize that there are risks but do it anyway. Your self-esteem is counting on you. Get it in your head right now! Bullies are gutless, pathetic pieces of crap! human filth! toilet scum!

Here’s another fact, most bullies are also narcissists, psychopaths, and sociopaths. Therefore, there is something dark within them that motivates them to bully others.

I’ll say again. It is not your fault. And there is nothing about you that would make anyone mistreat you. So believe that you are a smart, beautiful person! Believe that you are a better person than your tormentors because you are!

Never allow any bully to convince you that you are less than them. Hold on to your faith and your confidence. Counter every negative statement a bully makes.

With knowledge comes empowerment!

You Can’t Be a People-Pleaser and Be Happy at The Same Time

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The road to happiness starts with being yourself. That means being true to your feelings, beliefs, opinions, convictions, and tastes. It also means making your own decisions and living life on your own terms. Otherwise, you’ll never be happy.

Anytime you try to fit in and be liked, you suppress yourself and your own needs and desires. You bury your true nature and stuff down your true emotions and become a robot!

You’ll jump through hoops to win the approval of others- you’ll comform to impossible expectations, put up with shabby treatment, and run yourself ragged putting everyone else’s needs before your own. In essence, you consistently shape-shift until you bend yourself in a pretzel!

To put it bluntly, you kiss arse, eat sh*t, lick boots, and become everybody’s stooge. And for what? Just to be liked?

Businessman with wind up key on his back sitting on chair and using laptop computer on city background. Manipulation concept

Forget that!

Sadly,  today’s culture dictates that you be who others, especially those in power, want you to be rather than who you are. In today’s society, to be natural equals being anti-social. It means to risk being an outcast and that’s scary for many because most people have been programmed to suppress their true selves in order to fit in and be liked and it’s the same people who expect you to follow suit.

These people think that life and the world is one big popularity contest and it isn’t. This is why we have so many who are depressed because bullies and abusers have prevented them from expressing their true emotions, their true nature, and therefore, from being their true, authentic selves.

Understand that society has programmed the majority of us to adopt values and beliefs we don’t really hold, follow social rules we really don’t agree with, and basically hate who we really are. So, we hide behind a mask of fakery.

But! Sooner or later, that mask will slip off, as it is surely bound to do. Then what?

The reality is that no one can put on an act forever- eventually our true nature begins to seep through. Then what happens?

People then see us for the frauds we were and we get shunned and ridiculed anyway. The very thing we fear and have been running from finally catches up with us.

So, why not be yourself from the start? We may be ridiculed for it but, at least, we won’t be so because we were found to be fake and living a lie. If I’m going to be made fun of anyway, I’ll be so for being me and living my truth. And I’ll do it free of depression and excess stress.

Sadly, this is something most don’t think about, which is why so many people instead hide behind a fake facade.

For example, many seek approval by showing off, doing dangerous stunts to impress an audience and end up getting seriously hurt.

If you’ve ever watched the TV show, “World’s Dumbest Partiers,” you then know what I’m talking about.

Do you remember several years back, when people were filming themselves on YouTube, Facebook, and other apps, eating Tide Pods, or participating in The Knock-Out Game? These are other examples.

It’s pathetic the lengths people will go to get attention and win the admiration of others- even people they don’t know or even like!

Realize that you don’t have to go to these extremes to be well thought of. And the people who do are only insecure wusses who’s only life purpose is to get attention and be thought of as cool.

What isn’t so cool is the many injuries and trips to the emergency room- the broken bones, the paralysis, and the deaths that result from this stupidity.

Think about this: If you end up in a wheelchair for the rest of your life because you did something stupid while trying to prove something, do you really think these so-called friends and admirers will continue to stick around?

How cool and admired will you be if you end up permanently disabled to such an extent that you can’t even go to the bathroom on your own, or worse- wipe your own behind?

Its sad that people continue to engage in risky behaviors to get the psychological benefits of attention, approval, and admiration. And they do it because they feel empty inside and are trying to fill a void.

Trying to please or impress others gets you nowhere because to do so means that you must ignore yourself and put your own wants and needs on the back burner. In many cases, it means putting your health and even your life in peril. All because you’re living a lie.

Bullies often called me chicken when I’d refuse them any time they told me to do something that had the potential to cause me injury. But I’d rather be a chicken than a turkey. And my refusal only ensured my safety.

Understand that you don’t have to do any of these things to be liked or considered cool. And if others can’t accept you as you are, then perhaps you’re keeping the wrong company and need to find better people- people who celebrate you as the unique, awesome, incredible, and amazing person you truly are.

Be yourself. Moreover, just be.

Know that you’re enough. Better yet, you’re awesome just the way you are. Accept yourself. Believe in yourself. Love yourself and all your quirks and imperfections, for we all have them.

With knowledge comes empowerment!

Don’t Lose Yourself in The Crowd

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Following the crowd and conforming too tightly to what everyone else thinks and does is so unhealthy! When the desire to fit in takes up so much of your time and energy, it leaves you feeling exhausted.

Understand that to follow the crowd requires that you neglect your own wants and needs to appease and please others. After so long, you will build up resentment and the funny thing is that you won’t know why you feel so resentful.

But I can tell you why. It’s because you neglected and denied your own needs to satisfy other people. You didn’t practice self-care because you were so afraid of pissing someone off.

Being a crowd-follower leaves one feeling controlled and manipulated. It’s also tiring because it requires so much work and effort.

Can you imagine having to shift-shape yourself constantly, forever having to change and adjust yourself to the new and keep up with the Jones’s? I can, because I did that for a long time and don’t want to ever do it again. It was exhausting and frustrating!

Understand that you’re not a ball of play-doh and no one can mold you into what they want you to be unless you allow them to. When you break your back to follow the crowd, you become a stranger to yourself. You will no longer recognize yourself because you’ve lost any sense of who you are.

When you don’t know yourself anymore, you lose sight of your goals, dreams, and aspirations. In short, you forget all about what you want out of life. Even worse, you’re more likely to take abuse from others and do things you don’t want to do- just to fit in and be liked.

You constantly worry and fret about what others think of you and say about you.

Screw that noise!

That’s no way to live and life’s too short for it!

Once you’re lost yourself, getting reacquainted with yourself is a slow process and can be downright uncomfortable. But it’s a necessity if you ever want to get your life back and be happy and at peace.

With knowledge comes empowerment!

Bullies Hate Differences of Any Kind. What is Hate Transfer?

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bullying bullied victim hard

You’ve heard of addiction-transfer- when an addict replaces one addiction with another (for example, the addiction to food is replaced with an addiction to alcohol). But what about hate-transfer?

Here’s an explanation. I’ll use my school bullies as examples.

Many of my bullies in high school were stone-cold racists. However, they couldn’t express that hate to minorities because even during the ’80s and early ’90s, open racism was taboo. So, they simply replaced that hatred with that of the mentally ill and disabled, the indigent and out-of-town people.

I know they were racists because, on many occasions, they bullied me because having been a military brat and been around people of all races and creeds, I had no qualms with associating with people of all races. I accepted everyone because I’ve always believed we are all one race- the human race!

However, in Oakley, Tennessee, people frowned on this and not only people of my race but others as well.

hypocrite hypocrisy double standard

I also overheard many private conversations among girls in the bathrooms. They’d make disgusting racial slurs and put down other races among themselves within the privacy and secrecy of their group, then in public, smile and give a friendly pat on the back to the very people they put down earlier. Sheesh! They would act like they were their best friends.

But wait! There’s more!

However, they were openly hateful to the kids in the Special Ed classes, who they referred to as “the retarded kids.” They also publicly bullied kids who were dirt poor and kids who weren’t originally from Oakley. And if you were gay back then, you never let it be known at Oakley High School.

You see, people such as these have to have someone to bully. If they can’t bully other races, they will bully the poor and destitute. If they cannot bully transexuals, they will bully the mentally disabled.

bullying bullied victim

But wait! There’s more!

However, they were openly hateful to the kids in the Special Ed classes, who they referred to as “the retarded kids.” They also publicly bullied kids who were dirt poor and kids who weren’t originally from Oakley. And if you were gay back then, you never let it be known at Oakley High School.

You see, people such as these have to have someone to bully. If they can’t bully other races, they will bully the poor and destitute. If they cannot bully transexuals, they will bully the mentally disabled.

That is what hate-transfer is.

It’s having a hatred of anyone different from you but staying in the “safe zone” by only discriminating against those who aren’t as “protected.”

Prejudice against anyone should be illegal, and it is. However, bias against the poor or mentally disabled isn’t near as evident as bias against someone from a different race because anyone from any ethnicity can be poor or mentally incapacitated.

And skin color can be seen with the eyes. Poverty and mental disability are sometimes invisible to the eyes. You can be poor or have a mental disability. People can even know or suspect you may be poor or mentally disabled. But you don’t necessarily have to look that way.

bullying scapegoat victim bullied

Sadly, to have legal protections, your uniqueness to the majority must be seen with the eyes, and even then, it’s no guarantee you’ll have those protections.

Understand that most seasoned bullies hate anyone different from them. But they only harass the groups who have less legal protections and are “safest” and more socially acceptable to bully!

The more you know.

Bullies Intentionally Select Targets

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Anyone, who is a victim of bullying knows all too well, the feeling of bewilderment, the confusion…. the questions- The “What did I do wrong?”, “What is it about me?” or “What do they treat me so horrible?” If you are a target, allow me to answer these questions for you.

First, you did nothing wrong!

Second, there is NOTHING wrong with you!

And third, they treat you wrong because of something that is within THEM! Not YOU!

I want you to understand that bullies purposely select their victims. They know exactly what they’re doing and why they’re doing it. Remember that bullies are nothing but sniveling little cowards. And they select anyone they don’t believe will fight back. Or these who achieve great things.

School bullies feel weak. They always pick those they think are slow, kids with hearts of gold, who would never hurt a fly, children who are disabled, mentally handicapped or mentally ill, youngsters who are quiet and reserved and children who have what is perceived to be a physical flaw (overweight, underweight, eyeglasses, braces, or disfigured from accidents).

In school, bullies may select other classmates at random to see how they react. If a potential victim stands up to the bully and tells them off, the bully will then slink away with their tail between their legs. They will then search for someone else until they find the victim who responds how they want them to (cries, ignores them, walks away, runs, tattles, etc.)

Workplace bullies feel threatened. They pick coworkers who are intelligent, competent, and well-liked by others. They pick them because the exceptional workers are the people who make them look bad.

Close-up of woman in black T-shirt is cracking her knuckles gesturing willful and ready for doing something; or in another side; the bad behavior when in tension; concept of health care and medical.

Through their excellent work, the victims hold a mirror up to the bullies (and everyone else) at work, forcing them to see their own pathetic reflections. They unwittingly expose their weaknesses and their incompetency by their successes, accomplishments, and impeccable work ethic. They also make bullies feel overshadowed.

The only way a bully can feel powerful and that they measure up is to bring the victim down or have a victim to use as a punching bag. If they don’t have that target, they feel less than and will go to the ends of the earth to find one. Realize that bullies can’t get power through a meritocracy because they have zero redeeming qualities. So, they bully others and that’s what gives them power.

At work, bullies will often select the brightest high performers and achievers.

School boy angel with wings and halo concept for being clever, good, success in education or smug

Once the bully finds his/her chosen victim, they target that person, sometimes for years until that person either changes schools or workplaces, moves, or dies. Then, once again, the bully will be on the hunt for a replacement victim.

I want you to understand that bullying at any age is born out of cowardice, jealousy, and insecurity. A bully is a pitiful person. Only a lowdown, uneducated, sad, and pathetic person has to have another person to harm. Think about it! School bullies pick on kids they perceive as weak! They stoop so low as to pick on disabled kids! And they do it to feel better about themselves.

Workplace bullies select someone who outperforms them. Only a loser scumbag creep does that! A zero! A sick moron!

So have the courage to call the bully OUT on these things! I realize that there are risks but do it anyway. Your self-esteem is counting on you. Get it in your head right now! Bullies are gutless, pathetic pieces of crap! human filth! toilet scum!

Here’s another fact, most bullies are also narcissists, psychopaths, and sociopaths. Therefore, there is something dark within them that motivates them to bully others.

I’ll say again. It is not your fault. And there is nothing about you that would make anyone mistreat you. So believe that you are a smart, beautiful person! Believe that you are a better person than your tormentors because you are!

Never allow any bully to convince you that you are less than them. Hold on to your faith and your confidence. Counter every negative statement a bully makes.