Bullies Don’t Win

Have you ever  been bullied for any of these? 

• Wearing glasses
• Being smart
• Having curly hair 
• Not being good at sports
• Having an old soul 
• Looking like one of the teachers
• Having a microwave
• Wearing ‘Jesus’ sandals
• Not being able to swim

I recently finished listening to How To Be A Champion by Sarah Millican. The author narrated this biography. She is one of my favorite stand up comedians. I felt like a single ticket patron at a show that lasted 6 hours and 57 minutes. I loved it. 

She devotes chapter 5 to the things she was bullied about (see partial list above) 

In the book she talks about one day when the mean girls stood on the toilet in the stalls on either side of her to watch her pee and laugh at her. She talks about her hair and her grades and her being chosen last all the time during PE. 

What amazes me most about this chapter and a few others like it is how she chose to handle these moments in her life. She used her own style of creativity to rise above the fray of her life. 

For example, the one time a kind PE teacher let her choose her own team.  What did she do? She chose ALL of the outcasts. She chose the unpopular, bad at sports, awkward, also wears glasses girls for her team. Did they win? Not likely. But she said that was not the point. The point was that she chose all of the ‘other’ girls and left the popular girls out to be chosen by someone else. They laughed and lost with smiles and joy from being on a team they were chosen for.  

~Lydia Patrick