Bullying and Personal Ethics

How do you want
to be treated?

This post is in response to the video of a group of middle school students bullying and taunting a school bus monitor in Greece NY.  It’s a very difficult video to watch. This post isn’t about what can be done to stop such things from happening. (That post is here). This post is about what this incident tells us about personal ethics.

To be ethical, you must first recognize that the people you interact with are real people. The reason why the rest of us got so upset is because she’s a grandma and a widow and her son killed himself and the kids taunting her didn’t take any of that into account. She didn’t deserve to be treated that way. No one does.

It is clear from the video and from conversations with one of the dads, the kids, who are 13 – 15, weren’t thinking about what they were doing. They were just one upping each other and it was a game to them. Of course they weren’t thinking about the impact they were having on Ms. Klein (the bus monitor). They were thinking about themselves and how to fit in with their peers. To them, Ms. Klein wasn’t really human. As a result, they never considered the impact they were having on their target.

All too often we go through life ignoring the reality of the people around us. We get so wrapped up in our own problems that we don’t consider that other people might have problems of their own. And that is why we all got so upset at the behavior of those kids on that bus. They didn’t take into account the reality of Ms. Klein’s life.

The secret to ethics isn’t about following a set of rules. It goes much deeper than that. It is about truly understanding the golden rule. When you take the time to think about how you want to be treated by others, as a real human being worthy of respect and dignity, you realize that you need to treat others with respect as well. Everyone is struggling with something. When you realize that, the thought of tormenting another person becomes unthinkably cruel.

Image: "School Bus" by Arvind Balaraman FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The hardest part

Image(s): 
FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The hardest part about solving our problems is realizing we need to let go of some of our pain to do it. Most people are not willing to let go of their pain because it is part of what defines them. They want whatever is happening to be about them, even if what is happening is not pleasant.

The problem is that in difficult interpersonal relationships, if you want to solve your problem, you have to consider your adversary compassionately. Again, most people aren’t willing to do that because they want and need to be the victim in their drama. And so, they would rather allow their problems persist than to consider the possibility that they might be contributing to the problem.

Regardless of how hard it is and how scary this is to do, if you want to heal, you need to find compassion for yourself and your adversary, in that order. You have to love yourself enough to allow yourself to heal by thinking beyond your hurt to consider someone else’s point of view.

In my latest book, The Bully Vaccine, I spend a couple of chapters talking about the need to consider bullies through the lens of compassion. I know full well that most people reading my book will refuse to do this. What they really want is for the bullying to stop without them having to do any hard work.We Humanists live in the real world. We know that if we want something to happen, we need to take responsibility to make it happen.

When it comes to dealing with a bully, you have to know what is actually motivating them. Hint - bullies rarely bully just to be mean or evil. Most are just trying to feel less insecure or are doing it to try and fit in.  Once you understand a bully’s true motivation you use that information to essentially “retrain” them to not bully you.  If you are too wrapped up in your pain to try and see the world through another person’s eyes, you are not going to be able to achieve the emotional distance you need to implement my program.

There are two main benefits of feeling compassion for a bully. The first is that it puts you in the state of mind to actually respond to them in an emotionally secure way – which is essential to ending the bullying cycle. The second benefit is that instead of focusing on your pain, you are focusing on the pain of someone else. And this really does help insulate you from the mean things the bully is doing. It’s like having an emotional force field around you.

Another way to think about this is that you and the bully have been going round and round on a carousel. By deciding to feel compassion for the bully, you are deciding to step off the carousel while the bully continues to go round and round. You can see them, see what they are doing, but because you are not on the ride with them anymore, you are unaffected by their activities and it is easier for you to encourage them to get off the ride they are on as well. And if they refuse, well, that’s their problem.

So, yes, feeling compassion for bullies and other obnoxious people is probably the hardest thing you can do. However, it is also the smartest thing you can do.

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It’s Not About You!

Image: imagerymajestic /
 FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I’ve recently released a book on bullying (free on KindleMay 14th & 15th 2012 by the way) and as a result, I’m getting a lot of adults talking to me about their own experiences with bullying. It’s clear that pretty much everyone I know was traumatized by bullying as a kid.

Anyway, one person referred me to the essays at Salon on writers confrontingtheir childhood bullies as adults. What struck me about these essays was that in almost all the cases the bully either didn’t really remember specific instances, though they remember teasing or being mean, and/or they talked about how traumatized they were during the period of time and that they themselves were so overwrought with nervousness, stress or bullying themselves.

These essays validate what I’ve been trying to teach people for years and what is at the heart of my book, The Bully Vaccine. The world does not revolve around you. When someone is mean to you it rarely has anything to do with you. The person being mean has their own issues they are dealing with and those issues are rarely about you. This is why these bullies don’t really remember being mean or bullying . Their experience wasn’t about their victims. It was about them and what they themselves were going through at that time.  They, like everyone else, were kids just trying to survive childhood with all the pressures growing up brings with it.

This tidbit of wisdom has so many important ramifications that I devote 2 ½ chapters of my Happiness book to this concept and my entire Bullying book to it. Let me try to summarize. First, by understanding that a bully’s behavior isn’t about you, even though they are being mean to you, you don’t take what they do personally. If you don’t take it personally, you aren’t hurt by what they are doing. You feel sorry for them instead.  

Whenever someone is mean to you, always remember, it’s not about you!

Standing Tall

I just published a book on bullying called, The BullyVaccine.  I was talking to my son about bullying the other day since I’ve taught him the skills I teach in the book and he said, it’s important to stand strong and have courage.

I agree. The problem is, how does one do that?  It isn’t’ easy.  As I was pondering this concept of standing tall, I realized something important. Standing up for yourself doesn’t mean you get violent or demean the person you are standing up to.

Yes, you are defying them, but the best way to stand tall is to stand up, look your oppressor right in the eye and basically say – you don’t scare me and no, I’m not going to stoop to your level. It’s an act of compassionate non-compliance.

It isn’t about fighting back. It’s about declaring that you aren’t going to play the game a bully is playing anymore. And that’s why standing up is such an act of courage.

I don’t think it’s just kids that need to learn this lesson. It’s the adults as well.

Here is a video of my son talking about bullying.