This is an article originally written for USA Volleyball in 2013. I wrote it after watching kids across the country and the world and how they often treated each other. I wanted to address bullying not just in how it affects the victims but to describe the actual choice bullies are making about themselves. You can find the original article here: http://www.teamusa.org/USA-Volleyball/Features/2013/December/02/Dont-Bully-the-Passion-out-of-Greatness
Who do you want to be?
No, really. Stop. Actually think about what kind of person you
want to be. What do you want to bring to
the world? What kind of impression do
you want to leave on the people you’ve touched in your life?
Maybe those feel like really deep
questions but you’re answering them every day with everything you do and every
interaction you have. So it might be a
good idea to think about what your answers are.
Because you can tell yourself you want to be the kind of person that
makes the world better but that means absolutely nothing if it doesn’t come out
in how you treat the people around you.
When I say
the people around you, I mean all of them.
It’s easy to be nice to people you like or those with authority over you
or someone who’s higher up in the “social hierarchy”. But you know what? How you treat other people has nothing to do
with who they are; it’s about who you are.
So when you laugh at the unpopular girl at school or ignore the awkward
kid on your team, it says nothing about them and everything about you. And it does not make you better than anyone
else. Bullying never makes you cool; it
just makes you a jerk.
Do you have
any idea the power that you have? Every
day when you get up in the morning, you have the ability to make other people’s
lives better. With one word, one smile,
you can brighten someone’s day and make the world a happier place. But every time you make someone feel bad about
themselves, every time you judge someone for being different from you, every
time you make someone feel like they are alone in this world all you do is make
the world a little bit darker. So what
do you want to do? Do you want to go to
bed at night knowing that you’re responsible for a little more love and light
in the world or for a little more pain?
That’s the choice that you have every day and you will be remembered for
that choice.
