I'm Sorry, I Can't Turn The Other Cheek...

Another week has passed and yet another sad story about a young person that has taken their own life because they were bullied. Many times when I hear of these sorts of news stories and instantly begin to internalize them by thinking about how I would react to similar situations. I know it isn't fair because no two situations are the same but I do it anyway.  I am sure that I cannot the only person that does this. Anyway, I have often wondered why I was not a victim of a bully.  This is because I know that this is not something new, but the attention it is getting is nothing short of amazing to me.

So why was I not bullied? I honestly think it had to do with my upbringing.  Now before I go any further, I want to give the disclaimer that I am only speaking of my own personal experiences. I cannot and will not speak for anyone else. I am not attempting to change how people raise their children or anything like that. I would like to explain what I mean by how I was able to avoid bullying by how I was raised. First off, let me say, I am an only child so I was an easy target for a bully in my opinion. Even though I am an only child, I do have a big family that all believe on having each other's backs. In other words, blood is thicker than water, so to speak. With that being said, we were all raised in Christian households and were taught to love thy neighbor, treat people the way you want to be treated, etc.... I am sure you get the point by now. The flip side of that is that we were also raised to not turn the other cheek.

Yes, you read that right, a Christian family that do not believe in turning the other cheek. We were taught not to ever hit first, but if someone put their hands on you then "game on".  The two wrongs don't make it right theory is out the door when dealing with someone that wants to harm you. I was taught at an early age that this is called "protecting" yourself and not "retaliation" as it is taught to many children today. If someone does something to you and you don't do anything about it then they will not ever stop. These types of people do not care about getting in trouble with the authorities because odds are they are not strangers in the system. The only thing that will stop a bully or someone that wants to do another person harm is the thought that they may actually have to "work" at it. Bullies are weak people at the end of the day and they want to prey on the weak. If they think they may have to work at being a bully they will move on to the next person.  If someone hit me, then they knew they would get hit back. If someone asked me for lunch money, they knew the answer would be no, and they would have to take it from me if they wanted it that bad. Of course they didn't cause that would mean "working" for my lunch money. It wasn't going to be easy. In the words of one of my good friends that had a similar upbringing, "I may not win the fight, but at the end of the day, they will know that they had a fight." That means that, I don't care if I win or lose, all that matters is that the bully understands it isn't going to be easy to pick on me so keep it moving, leave me alone.