This world we live in is cruel, as human beings it’s of our nature to be ‘evil’. Of course you as an individual might not be but unfortunately there is more grave actions in the world they outweigh the righteous ones. At one point in our lives we’ve all done something we regret, I can say I have. Whether it was something little like taking an extra cookie or even if it was something bigger, if the situation was to happen again I would think twice. Growing up I know I haven’t always been the nicest person towards others. I’ve said and done things I wish I could take back however the past is something we can’t change but more of something we can learn from.

Until this past week learning about bullying and how it affects so many people, I never realized that these emotions and feelings are ones I could have brought upon others. Bullying is more severe than society makes it out to be. While watching the documentary film The Bully directed by Lee Hirsch, I received more of an insight on the ones who were victimized. The Long’s story stood out to me the most; their boy was just like any other young boy. He wasn’t ‘retarded’ nor did he look any different, he had every chance to live a normal fulfilling life. This situation could have early been prevented, all it took was one person to stand up and stop harassment.

Bullying can damage a person mentally and emotionally, that of which could lead to his/her hurting them self physically as well. In the most extreme cases of victimization it could result in suicide. There is no reason that anyone should feel the need to end their life. Despite the fact that bullying is intolerable, I believe that if you let manipulative no good people cloud your feelings of yourself you have a bigger issue. People then should be focused on helping the victims with their self confidence and their well being. They can’t be upset about how others treat them if they don’t have respect for themselves first.

Bullying can be passive, meaning you don’t react to the nonsense; or reactive, which is when you respond toward the harassment. There are different forms of bullying but one of the most common is cyber bullying. You’d think that it could be as easy as just shutting your computer or not answering the text, but to teenagers it’s more than just that. The reactive victims are interested in getting back at their bully but the passive ones not so much. Much like the documentary when The Long’s family made an organization to notify the community of the problem, in Article 1 by Ron Banks he suggests several ways to prevent it. He believes the most beneficial way is “to develop whole-school bullying policies, implement curricular measures, improve the school ground environment, empower students through conflict resolution, and peer counseling and assertiveness training’. Yes these are all great ideas and can each benefit the cause, but for how long will they be of help to the worldwide problem? People are so subtle to the difficult situation it will time and time again get passed off as non important. Take the time to research the topic and realize that you can to make a change in our world.