Bullies and Allies | Identifying them as Adults
Aim of the article: A bully is something or someone who could sometimes make life worth living just as much as an Ally. A bully is usually not bad. So the idea is not to hate a bully and equally important to realize that it’s not always a person. The reader at the end of the article should hopefully be able to pause and reflect on a few aspects, such as the different allies and bullies that they have come across and live with. Give some thought on how building allies could help coexist with bullies and how an ally is not always someone who is bigger or more powerful than you.
For Grownups past a certain stage, A bully is usually not a person. It’s an idea or a feeling.
The funny thing about bullies is that they are not always bad people or bad experiences. They are just an impediment that is stopping you from doing something that will make your life better or different.
A bully for many could be a fear that is sometimes in the form of a real traumatic childhood experience or sometimes even a make-believe one, a painful experience, your standards and expectations from the self that is stopping you from creating new experiences or trying something again.
For many, a bully could be the experience of a bad relationship that makes you fearful of committing fully to a new one.
A bully could be your own self-image of absolute perfection(or something else) that won’t let a wrong move tarnish your bulletproof reputation or an image that you have been feeding to others for years.
A bully could be years of social conditioning that makes you feel that life needs to be lived in a certain manner.
A bully could be your smartest friend who unknowingly makes you feel worthless because of whom you will always be too afraid to try something that he/she feels is something that people should not do.
A bully could be your feeling of owing someone something that restricts your actions. Maybe find other ways to repay your debt?
A bully could be your well-intentioned parent who will not let you settle for anything but the best(in their eyes based on years of their personal conditioning).
A bully could be your lover who loves you for what they see you as and tries everything in their power to not let you change.
A bully could be that straight-A, Ph.D., and well-respected professional or a mentor who you look up to and has claimed something to be absolutely useless and wrong in how you look or approach something.
A bully could be your set of friends whose playful chides could be the reason why you won’t make a simple improvement in your life.
A bully could be the fear of loneliness that’s keeping you in a failed relationship or the fear of helplessness that’s keeping you working with a bad boss.
A bully is also mainstream media that numbs you.
A bully is overworking and burning out as your idea of success is stopping you from listening to your own body.
A bully is definitely that damn lizard that I found while sitting on the pot the other day. All cockroaches (esp the flying ones), and lizards should be eliminated. There. I said it.
Investing in Allies
Just like a playground where if you find your gang, your bully will leave you alone in the same manner if you find your support group of people(Allies) who believe in you and truly understand what you want, then you are able to gather the confidence to fight/live with your bullies regardless.
The older you grow, the people whom you love and the comfort that they provide or the ideas that you hold so dear since childhood could unknowingly become your biggest bullies. Getting them back to being your allies can significantly upgrade your life and be one of your best time investments.
Try to see how they are feeling, how they look at life, what their own fears are? That could be a great step in figuring out how you can help them and yourself at the same time.
Key point – When was the last time you tried to change the environment of the bully and then tried to make them understand your point of view or how you truly feel?
When we try to change the opinions of people we try to do that basis facts and disregarding the emotional and physical environment that they are currently in.
How can you make them feel emotionally the way you do before making them analyze the way you do? Remember facts usually never win arguments, feelings do. Even the most powerful of facts are usually powerless in the face of years of conditioning.
Being mindful of your Bully fighting Machinery
You don’t always need to be facing a bully to gather your allies. The funny thing is that your ally could also become a bully. Hence you need multiple types and grades of allies. Slightly wobbly here but hope you get the point.
I think one of the main assets that you can build as a young professional is to build your bully fighting allies. The interesting thing is that we usually try to make allies only with people more successful than us, however, allies could be much younger or less successful than you as well. They could be weird(in a conventional sense), they could be funny, they could be poor, they could be failures(again, conventionally speaking) but they would be your ally helping you fight a particular bully, and maybe you could be theirs.
In life, I have seen many people give more effort into converting a bully (usually because they care or respect them too much) rather than building an ally.
But beyond a point, wouldn’t it be better to counterbalance with some amazing allies