We all remember those days in preschool where the biggest toddler would snatch away the toy you were playing with and exclaim “Mine!”. Some of us would cry, some of us would begin a tug of war and others would just take the loss and find another toy to enjoy. For most though, bullying seemed to have ended in the sandbox.

Nowadays bullying occurs in every facet of people’s lives. From the homeless to the bosses, everyone experiences some form of negative pressure to do things against their own will. But has it gone too far?

So many incidents have arose, shootings, suicides and manic behaviors sparked by the distress of a bullied teen. Jamey Rodemeyer, a 14 year old Buffalo, N.Y. boy, took his own life because the constant bullying about his sexuality had become unbearable. His pleads for acceptance was met by threats and derogatory terms instead.

Even celebrities endure bullying. Powerful business man P. Diddy exchanged words with on again off again jailbird T.I. simply because he was seen not drinking the vodka brand P.Diddy endorses. Shouldn’t T.I. have the right to drink whatever he likes? Even more mind boggling is who made P. Diddy the liquor president and gave him power to enforce the liquor laws? Sounds to me like a classic case of too much ego and not enough sense.

Social Media plays an important part too. With the success of websites like Facebook, Twitter and the like, getting your personal opinions and ideas out to the world is easy as one, two, three. Anyone is an author and can post pictures requiring no releases. What happens when blogs are written about you? Or Facebook statuses exposing your secrets are posted for the whole world to see. It makes bullying that much easier to reach far beyond the classroom and workplace.

Now that we know bullying has reached an extreme, what do we do about it? Some parent teaches their kids to fight back, to exchange words and to never let someone see you sweat. Others teach to turn the other cheek. Should we also teach our kids to delete their Facebooks and Twitters to avoid social media conflict altogether? Definitely not. We need to reach the root of the problem, and then extract it. Until then we can only hope another fight doesn’t ensue or another life gets loss.

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