Bullying

Unless you've been under a rock someplace or you don't own a computer, you've heard by now about the little Australian boy who has become a hero by being more violent then the child that was picking on him. I couldn't find the video to tell you how many millions of times it's been viewed but I did see it on every major news outlet and the boy will probably be going on tour soon... perhaps a co-bill with Charlie Sheen...

These boys are two sides of the same coin. Bullies feel powerless so they take their power from someone else: usually the most powerless kid they can find. Now I know some of you are going to have a fit (at least I hope so) and say I'm blaming the victim, but it should be perfectly obvious to us that both of these boys are victims and I'm not blaming anyone. If the kid who was bullied felt worthy enough, he would have a bunch of loving friends. Kids with a bunch of friends don't get bullied. If the bully felt worthy enough he would have been doing something constructive with his time instead of hanging out with a bunch of other kids who actually found this atrocity funny enough to film. Maybe he would have even been friends with the kid he was bullying.

We, as  individuals within a society, need to reconnect with our own power. That never comes from someone else. That is the only way we can teach our children to do the same.
Now, I know some of you are saying that the child should not stand there and let the bully  'get away with it' and I agree with you. What I'm saying is that we have failed both of these kids by allowing them to feel powerless enough to find themselves in this situation in the first place.
How different would this whole debate be if the bully had landed on his head and died? Who would be the hero then?

We are calling this boy a hero. Do we really need a bunch of powerless children all over the world right now striving to be a hero? If these kids had gotten the kind of attention that would allowed them to understand how powerful they really are, they surely (neither one of them) would not be getting the kind of attention they are getting right now.

But, the pendulum swings. There is no up without down and the incident happened (I hope) so that at the very least we could learn something. So what did society supposedly learn? That we should hit the kid that hits us, harder then he hit us. THEN,  you too can become a hero, be celebrated by millions and end up on the news.