Waheguru Jee Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Jee Kee Fateh!
In life, a person gets bullied sometime sooner or later. For me, it occurred quite soon. Bullying can either be serious for a person or just another day to day thing, but for me, it was sort of a serious matter. In 7th grade, it was the first time I ever got bullied because of the way I was and because of my turban. Just before starting school, I had taken Amrit and things were a bit different for me. Well someone ended up starting a rumor about me that under my turban, there was a grenade there. When I found out about this, I started to think to myself how were people able to jump to such conclusions about me without even knowing me. For a while, more bullying occurred because of the way I looked and what my beliefs were. As things worsened, I felt like I was running out of options/things to go to for help, so I was thinking about doing self-harm. As I was considering self-harm, I started to ponder on the idea of why such people were saying/doing things like that to intentionally hurt others. After that, I was going to start self-harm aka cutting myself and so, but in those times, Waheguru reached out to me and helped me. By Waheguru, I mean Guru Ji Himself and other people too because Waheguru dwells in all of us. Gaining support, I started not to care what others thought of me, and I would go on with my daily life. People would still say things, but I know that none of this mattered because those were just opinions that people had about me, and why should I care about what others think of me. I would get threats to have people beat me up or to disrespect my turban, but I would go on without igniting a reaction in their minds, because all the bullies need was a reaction out of me. I started to realize how bullying was to have an affect on me, and I could be able to control how bullying will be able to affect me. Bullies stop picking on me because of my turban and who I am, but started picking on me because of my weight. I knew that I wasn’t the fit guy and so, but I tried and still am trying to work my hardest to at least get my body in shape. As kids started making fun of my weight, I started to feel that I had to lose weight fast because of these people. As I went down the weeks, I realized, I don’t have to do things for these people, that who are these people to me. I should be losing weight because I feel like it’s necessary to keep my body in shape, not because these idiots are telling me too. Bullying helped me change and develop as a person because it made me realize that I shouldn’t be doing things for other’s approvals. Others can think what they want to think about me and say what they want to say, no one’s stopping them from doing that, but I shouldn’t have to listen and react to what they have to say. Bullying helped me develop in the fact that self-harm is not a good way to get rid of the stress caused from bullying, it’s worse, it’s causing you more pain than you are already feeling. In life, you don’t need other people’s approvals. All those mean nothing to a person you are. Your physical features shouldn’t matter to a person, what should matter is how your personality is, how you are a wonderful or helpful person. And a message to all those bullies out there, you shouldn’t take out what you are feeling (anger, aggressiveness, sadness, etc.) on other people because everyone has things to deal with, and now you put another thing on them. Bullying causes a person to gain extra stress, it causes some to start changing their ways because of what you and your friends believe is right and isn’t right. In this world, we should all have one love. Have peace, have equality, and love one another.
-Gurmun Singh
Waheguru Jee Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Jee Kee Fateh!
gsingh08ny 