Dealing With Bullying

May 06, 2012

For quite some time now, schools have been putting huge amounts of energy into stopping "bullying". They run numerous presentations and events to "raise awareness of bullying". For the most part, their solution is for the "victim" to "walk away" and tell the teachers and for the "bystanders" to "stand up" for the "victim".

Personally, I think all of this is nonsense. Short of when the bully physically harms the victim (in which case the schools' solutions would work), "bullying" is as much the victim's fault as the bully's and eradicating bullies isn't ever going to stop bullying.

A Typical Occurrence of Bullying

First, the bully figures out what he thinks the weak spots of the victim are. These are the places where the victim is denying the truth. Then, the bully says or does something that he thinks will trigger a defensive (which means funny) response from the victim. The victim is hurt and responds like the bully wanted him to. The bully laughs and says (or does) something else based on what the victim said (or did). Then, the cycle repeats.

For the cycle to continue, the victim must have weak spots and must be hurt by what the bully says or does. If the bully attacked one of the victim's strong spots where the victim fully accepts the truth, the victim wouldn't be emotionally swayed and because of that, he wouldn't be a victim.

An Analogy: Bullies and Hackers

When a hacker makes a computer virus, he first decides what his victim will be (usually a certain piece of software). Once identified, the hacker finds out what the weak spots of his victim are. Then he creates a program that will exploit those weak spots to his advantage. When his program attacks his victim, the victim is hacked and responds like the hacker wanted it to. If the hacker wants to exploit other victims, he repeats the cycle.

Notice the striking similarities between bullies and hackers. The only difference is that bullies attack people and hackers attack computers.

The solution for hackers is to fix software bugs by installing software patches. The solution for bullying is the same: Fix bugs by installing patches. A bug in this case is a truth you have been refusing to fully accept and a patch in this case is awareness and acceptance of the truth.

Let's look at the schools' solutions to bullying. The schools tell the victim to walk away and tell the teachers. This is like telling someone who's computer got hacked to disconnect from the Internet and tell the government to disable the hacker. The problem is, you are telling yourself that the problem is the teachers'/government's responsibility and therefore, that you have no power to solve the problem yourself. If the teachers/government doesn't solve the problem properly and quickly (and usually they don't), who will solve your problem? Even if the teachers/government does eradicate the bully/hacker, the bugs still exist, and other bullies/hackers will get to them in short order.

The other thing schools often say is for the bystanders to stand up for the victim. Again, this is getting other people to solve the victim's problems for him. If the "victim" knew that the solution for bullying is to fully accept the truth the "bully" is pointing to, he wouldn't need bystanders to help him.

(Physical bullying is a bit different. In this case, bystanders would be helpful. Knowing martial arts would also help.)

Instead of telling victims to tell the teacher, schools should show kids how to find and fix their personal bugs. That way "bullying" wouldn't ever be a problem as all the kids would be able to solve the problem themselves. (Don't expect this to happen soon. Schools have their own big truths that they are denying.)

Bullies -> Friendly Hackers

Software creators have teams of friendly hackers who would hack programs and computers to find bugs. Humans need friendly hackers too. We have plenty of bugs (unaccepted truths) waiting to be found. This is where bullies are great. They show you where your bugs are and that allows you to fix them.

Why fix human bugs? Unlike software bugs, human bugs aren't just vulnerabilities. Unaccepted truths will block you from living to your full potential. When you view reality inaccurately (which is what happens when you deny truths), you will make dumb decisions that people with a more accurate view will easily avoid. The more bugs in your mind that you fix, the better the life that you can live.

So if you are being bullied, it's because you are not fixing your bugs like a programmer ought to. If you habitually find and fix your bugs, bullies (and hackers) won't be a big deal ever again.

(PS. To be truly bully-proof, get good at martial arts. That way, physical bullying won't affect you either.)