Bullying; a word and action we’ve all known and seen before. What’s so “cool” about it anyways? People and their clique all seem to get praised by others for putting someone else down. Why? Because they’re not into the same things as you or they don’t wear the latest fashions? People seem to put bullying on the back burner, and as much as people don’t want to believe it’s true, bullying is real and it’s becoming a bigger problem for people, not only in schools, but anywhere they go. People shouldn’t have to be nervous or scared for work or school. At one point in our lives we have all probably been subjected to bullying or bullied someone. The recurring stories on the news, which is the same old line: “teen beat by school bully” or “local girl commits suicide.” It needs to stop, people need to stop letting it happen. Teachers, principles, lunch aids all see it happen but hardly do anything about it.

It’s not that the so-called bullies are horrible people. We never know what’s going on in someone’s life, or what he or she may have to deal with. This may be the very reason that the bully is going after people. Bullying may not be a huge deal to you and you may think that what you said isn’t hurting anyone, but it could possibly push someone across the limit. Maybe they had a problem going on at home and you said those things, it just adds to the problem. School counselors should be more involved with each student or maybe even groups, or at-least that’s what I believe. People have no idea what may be going on in another’s home or the stress they’re dealing with and bullying just makes things worse for everyone. Bullying doesn’t make you look cool or tougher than you are. People may egg it on now because what high-school teen doesn’t love drama; unless, of course, they’re the ones involved, but after you graduate and all of your high-school friends are gone with the wind. What’re you going to have? Your memories and who wants to look back and remember all the times you hurt someone because you wanted to look “cool” and be funny for the crowd.  Everyone’s human, we’ve all made mistakes and we’ve done good things. Just because he or she might not be the person you’d be friends; doesn’t mean you should hurt them for fun. My 8th grade English teacher always told us “just be nice.” So, just be nice.