Bullying is perhaps the single most destructive experience we’ve all come in contact with. Most of us may have confronted with bullying during our childhood as either a victim or as a silent spectator. However, bullying isn’t just limited to a person’s early years. It can also confront you in adult life at your workplace or even now through cyber space. No matter where a person comes in touch with bullying, the bottom line is that it soul crushing. It is an unpleasant experience that can completely destroy your self-esteem and often sucks the happiness out of you. It is therefore important to learn to create a world where empathy and inclusiveness is the norm.
Tanya, was our friend’s daughter. She was a pretty, but a sensitive child. Tanya suffered from meningitis in infancy, leaving her with a speech defect – shamefully an object of ridicule at her school!
One evening we were invited for dinner. At the table Tanya seemed unusually pensive. Her mother knew that things were not going well at school. She had heard of a Christmas wish contest on the local radio and thought it would be good for Tanya to participate. She broke the news to Tanya whose eyes lit up at the thought. The contest sounded like fun. As the young girl thought about what she wanted a smile adorned her face. She quickly penned down a letter for Santa stating that she was a lonely seven year old, with a stammer. She also suffered from asthma and eczema. Kids in school did not love her because of this and was treated like an outcast. She wished that for just a day, people would stop making fun of her and being hurtful. She only wished that she had friends to play with. She signed her name and carefully sealed the letter while each of us at the dinner table wondered what she could have wished for.
At a local radio station letters poured in for the ‘Christmas wish contest’. When Tanya’s letter arrived, the manager read it with tears in his eyes. So touched was he that he thought of getting it published in the local newspaper. The next day a picture of Tanya and her letter to Santa made front page news.
Suddenly the postman was a regular at the Shah residence. Envelopes of all sizes addressed to Tanya arrived daily. Each letter had a special message for Tanya. She now began to realize how many friends she had.
Tanya was granted her wish of a special day. Teachers and students at school expressed much remorse at their insensitivity and of having ostracized her. They promised to try more sincerely to accept this wonderful child as one of them. Today Tanya has friends everywhere including school.
Hence, we all need to create more opportunities to teach empathy to our children as well as other’s. We also need to have compassion for ourselves as victims of bullying, no matter how long ago it occurred. Always remember that harm caused by others may hurt us, but it cannot define us. As Michael J Fox once said- “One’s dignity may be assaulted, vandalized, and cruelly mocked, but it can never be taken away unless it is surrendered.”
Life Is Like That! 