There are still a few taboos I’d like to write about, and one very specific that I happen to come across more often than I’d prefer. But I’ll leave that for another post.
Today, let’s travel a few years back and talk about bullying in high school. Actually, let’s rewind to primary school. Have you ever been in a situation where you were laughed at? Have you ever been in a situation where you were laughed at for no reason? Maybe you weren’t part of the group? It could also be that just for the fact of passing by you got spit from nowhere or slapped from the back… You can get hurt physically and emotionally. They both hurt, and they are linked to each other. Physical aggression could get your self-esteem down, and insults can lead to different emotional disorders.
So here goes the story of today.
In the schoolyard, the fight for power was established through football matches. Every day we played our own Local World Cup. You got the Popular national team against the rest of the world, the outsiders, the ugly, clumsy, Leftovers F.C. You get to play against pretty good skilled guys, with expensive trainers, they even own the ball! The majority of them also trained at different clubs. I never got to go to football lessons; mine was more of a street-fighter football approach on the matter. I also have to say that, again by practice, I made it to a standard top 2 of the USD -Unofficial Street Draft, wherever I went.
I remember being beaten and losing to the best, with mocking and laughter on our way back to class. But somehow our team started to bond. The majority of our players didn’t even like football. So the way we adapted was strong defence with me as sweeper-midfielder-striker. We learned how to cover our goal as a block, and me irritating our Joga Bonito rivals and starting counterattacks. We made it. We were still beaten, but not every day. We got a place where we could fight for ourselves… we got to score, we got to experience what it was to win and also make friends.
Taking some perspective that years have given me, trying to find why I was left out or discriminated against, a flashback memory comes to my head as I write. I remember talking to my father, explaining that I couldn’t be part of the ‘cool’ group because I didn’t have a pair of ‘trendy’ trainers:
“Never deny who you are. Never stop being yourself.”
And again, with a few years of experience, I think he was right. I didn’t have to undermine myself to be a follower. I did have my own beliefs, and I did have my own personality. I learned that it’s nice to be part of the group, but not at all costs. Not at least at the cost of denying what you think is good for you, what makes you happy.
You don’t confront your fears in the same way when you are a kid as when you are an adult. In my case, the fact of getting into the habit of consistently overcoming challenges since I was a child, and having support from people who did care about me, helped me not only as a kid but as an adult. If you didn’t or don’t, let me encourage you to search and find people who do care about you and/or seek good professional help. You don’t need a full crowd; you just need to seek help if needed.
I got, by chance first and now by choice if I have to, to be left out. I also had and continue to have good people around me. And the most fascinating thing, which I realized with the passage of years – I’m a slow learner, is that I also got to meet and find people to have fun with.
At some point, that experience gave me the autonomy to create my own strategy to face challenges. Funnily enough, it is like machine learning and AI but within our own human capacity. You get exposed to different scenarios; you learn from them, and somehow you can face whatever comes your way when it does.
It’s not just that I can talk about this because I’ve experienced it firsthand; I’ve also taken the time to think, reflect on it, and find a way to overcome it.
After that exercise of reflecting and overcoming what I suffered firsthand, I realized that there were also people I happened to meet with different struggles, different stories, different pains, different fears, and anxieties. Theirs weren’t mine firsthand, but I saw a common cause that united us: a challenge to overcome.
Fighting the root cause of whatever is troubling you in an ever-changing reality is like driving. You might know the route; you might be an experienced driver, but you can’t control the traffic. So it’s learning. So it’s living. So it’s having fun.
And it is precisely this habit of understanding the reality around you, connecting the dots, that can lead you to both creating a plan to overcome it on your own and with others. Being able to learn and to dive deep into the facts that frustrate you can also enable you to get to know and empathise with those who struggle around you, and that definitely takes the fun of overcoming to an interesting new level.
If you allow me to dare and play on words in my scatty English, empathy can be a game-changer when it comes to facilitating change, and that change is for the better. Do not stop at what’s just on your chest; do not underestimate the positive impact you can make when you look beyond your own belly button. Empathy, like solidarity, is a key ingredient in nurturing honest relationships, strong teams, and helping them navigate the challenges of today and tomorrow.