KIND - It's Not that Hard

Soapbox time (sort of).  Much gets said nowadays about the topic of 'bullying'.  Maybe it's just my perception of how it gets talked about, but to me it seems like society views this as some new alarming trend that needs to be plastered across the media and for grand "STOP BULLYING!" campaigns to be stirred up.  I'm not exactly sure why but this kind of annoys me.  Not that I don't think the issue at hand is important and that as a whole our society needs to (re)learn how to act right toward each other - we certainly do!!  I'm not outright knocking such campaigns, but I guess I just get a little irked sometimes at the way old values that I feel should be second nature to us get recycled into a bandwagon that people suddenly get all gung-ho about, especially when it gets used to seemingly draw attention to themselves (i.e. celebrities and other attention seekers - judgmental, I know, my bad :( ).  I guess, too, though, that it's good that these values come back around at all!

Anyway, to me, our use of the word 'bullying' is dumb.  Or maybe it's just our concept of and approach to doing something about it.  Again, it seems to be viewed as this new and emerging social problem that's compartmentalized and approached almost like medical diagnoses are.  I feel like this falls short of identifying what is the real problem and therefore totally misses what is the real solution.  I like what a lot of people are doing to try to put a stop to the terrible things that kids do to each other at school, online, etc.  But to me talking about bullying is like hacking at the branches of a tree with a butter knife when what we should have is our eyes near the roots of that tree with a chainsaw in hand.  Or better yet a big truck and a heavy duty chain!

"Bullying" is nothing new.  It's as old as time and has been around since Satan swore that he would use enmity to ruin us.  One of his tactics is stirring up in us envy, malice, criticism, pride, etc.  Our tactics in response should simply be to follow the Savior's example and be kind.  That's it!  "Opposition in all things?"  Yeah, well we can oppose things too!  We all know how to be kind.  Children seem to instinctually know how to do this and to the degree they don't, good parents should teach them how...

Oh...did we just hit the deepest root?  Yank it out, son!  To me, herein lies the problem with so-called 'bullying' (and pretty much everything else that ails us humanoids) - failure in the home to teach how to act right toward other human beings!  There's no bullying, there's just people who've forgotten or been insufficiently taught how to be kind and decent.  I guess somehow that behavior gets perpetuated and magnified (like in the video below) by the group/gang mentality when those in the group who might speak up for niceness won't or don't, for whatever reason.

I know, weird soapbox, but for me, forget the labels and the idea that we need some special program or campaign to stamp out 'bullying.'  Just be kind like you know you should, encourage others to do the same (without being a bully yourself, which can be hard - I felt like punching the kids in the video below!), and if you're a parent or in another position to teach kindness and to be as the Christ would, do it!

Powerful and stirring Mormon Messages video, check it out...

And to read or watch the rest of President Uchtdorf's awesome talk that was used in this video, go here.