Do you know your strangers?
Every one of your close friends was once a total stranger. The reason why they are your friends is probably because you share something or many things in common. There is no better feeling in the world than knowing that they can relate and that they understand what you are going through. The best part of friends is although they can come and go; they all leave a lasting impression on you some way. This is an impression that lasts a lifetime.
There are many people in the world that have things in common. You do not always know what you have in common. Some people like myself will tell you almost anything. I feel I have nothing to hide. Others don't really share my mentality. They feel like everything must be kept a secret. They just do not want to feel like they will be judged. But I understand, I know why they do it.
People are very impressionable; they can be persuaded very easily. Almost like our natural instinct to everyone to see our opinion and agree with it. Unfortunately, this is not always a good thing. People don't always have an opinion for the greater good. They are not always nice opinion that will make everyone happy.
Why is everyone's opinion not always for the greater good, and just nice? Is it because people are bad? I'd say no, another part of human nature is having feelings towards something or someone. Of which can be influenced by anything, as common as jealousy or as rare as love. Its rather sad that neither of the two outweighs the other or has a greater influence because then we would be able to solve our own problems, like the civilized people we claim to be.
People have always thought that if they wanted to they could just get over their feelings. People have told me to "just get over her or just ignore what he said." I agree and disagree, and yes I know this sounds like a paradox, but it's true. To get over romantic feelings it takes time, because they are nothing but desires, hopes, and dreams, things that we want. We try to think that person will make us happy when they may not. We can fall in love easy with an idea and confuse this with a person. This unfortunately hurts us the most because we cannot stop thinking about Them.
With all the hopes and dreams of love that we have comes, unfortunately, jealousy. About this time we realized that we can't have what we want. And the worst feeling is that there is someone else who can. This is when we get a frost for a person that we are not even mad at. We just wish that we were them and no that we can never be them.
With all of these feelings flying around in our head we do things we wouldn't if we could think clearly. Because of that problems occur especially problems with children. Children are the most impressionable people. They hear something and magically they feel the need to repeat it like a parrot. A growing problem amongst children in the world today is bullying. That big bad kid that shoves the little bookworm in the locker still exists but now in different forms. The newest of forms is cyber bullying. In today's age technology is a wonderful thing but equally bad and dangerous.
The problem with cyber bullies is they are too scared to say something to someone else's face. Yet for some reason the affect is just as powerful to the victim. The words hurt just as bad as being physically pushed around. Even the kids that do get bullied in person, where is their block button or their turn off power switch. They need an escape route too.
Good clean fun is not always really fun. People can say they are joking but jokes can hurt too. Growing up in a fairly small town in New Jersey you know most of your classmates because you have always gone to school with them. But you don't really know all these people. If you look down your hallways how many people can you say are or have been bullied before? I bet that is a really small number if you can name one. Even in late 2011 the governor of New Jersey Chris Christie signed an anti- bullying law. This law creates bullying problems serious offensives for those who decide to bully now. But where was this law when everyone else needed it. 90% of all children that will or have been bullied are done so in 4th through 8th grade.
You would be surprised at how many kids are bullied. Especially during the middle school years, because of all the changes kids go through. Usually you can expect the bookworm to be picked on but how many suspect the head cheerleader, the captain of the football team, the nicest guy or prettiest girl? It can be true, everyone can be bullied in fact usually the bully is being bullied at home, by abusive parents. Looking around your classmates you can see the prettiest girl and maybe she's the nicest too, and you think they could never be bullied the bully would have no reason? That can be wrong. Maybe they are bullied by a jealous friend or jealous former friend. You just never can tell.
Friends come and go, because people change. That nice girl may not be able to handle her emotions and try to run away. I would do anything to just get away. Maybe they spend countless hours at night crying because they are afraid of what tomorrow will bring. The victims of bullying would surprise you, and the reasons for their situation would probably surprise you even more. One particular day in school, we had an assembly the yearly bullying, where the principal stands up on the stage and tells us that bullying is bad and now illegal. But this year it was much different. A young man came in and told us a story about himself and how he was bullied a lot as a kid and how now he is happy and loves life and while listening to his story you could hear the people in the auditorium quietly sobbing to themselves, even I was trying to hold back the water works. But one thing that stuck in my head from him that he said was "I wish someone had been there for me, I wish I had, a hero to stick up for me, be that hero."
That line really stuck with me. I never expected that assembly to actually inspire me. I just figured that I would listen to the principal and then go back to class and everything would be normal. But that did not happen. So I know that you want to know what this inspired me to do? I started a new club similar to a club we have called teen pep. Teen pep is a group that lets kids talk to other kids with any problems. The problem with teen pep is that the adult administrators pick the kids that can do the "counseling". So although we all know someone we trust to talk to kids may not be picked to help others although they may be good at it.
The club I created is called the Bullying Support Group. All because of the speaker we had come that day. He really made the idea hit home with his story and the stories of others. One of the many things that is special about this club is that it has no club president because we don't need one person to take charge, we all just want to help people. What makes this club different from teen pep is we know what it is to be bullied specifically. We know exactly how it feels and we know the pain and how to help others through it. We do not elect people to represent us, we do not interview people it is just you are here for help and can give help. Everyone is qualified to be a hero.