Issue 12 - About Shaming
We’ve been hearing a lot about shaming as of late in every media outlet across the globe but it’s become apparent this year that people are getting angrier and angrier about intolerance, hypocrisy and bullying. Truth to be told, shaming is no stranger to the human kind. We tend to react impulsively and emotionally to quite a variety of events in our lives when it comes to others. We have this thirst to define standards to look up to so that we may give ourselves an attainable goal and then look upon our peers to gauge if we are any closer to that ideal. Then some of us for one reason or another, whether it would be to seek the approval of other emotional peers or to respond to an inadequacy eating at us from within, decide to take it upon someone who do not meet this ideal standard…
SCREW. THAT.
Whether we are five years old or 50, shaming is by far the most destructive behavior you can ever engage into. It’s malicious towards you, towards others and towards our society. It brings no value, no substance to build a foundation on, and no movement towards change. Shaming will not make the overweight thinner, the elderly younger, the unkempt cleaner and the skinny plumper. It places a person in status quo, stalled between their own emotional response and the fear to be identified by others as flawed.
Example? When I was 200 pounds, I feared going to the gym because others had made fun of the fatso on the treadmill. I couldn’t wear short skirts because people mentioned the scars on my legs. I couldn’t wear a certain dress because apparently moms don’t dress that way… Shall I go on? I could talk about Body Positivity but I’m not going to. Instead I want to address those who have been shamed and those who shame in a few words.
For those who shame: - Whatever the reason you are angry, anxious or revolted about, do you really think that you will do anyone a favor to verbally vomit it out? You won’t be anyone’s savior, you won’t transform your own fate and the small amount of satisfaction you’ll get out of being intentionally malicious will never subside. Take a look at yourself long and hard and give yourself two things to improve on, one of them including saving your own self-respect through self-reflection, not by judging others.
For those who have been shamed: - You are no one’s victim. To allow a person to get under your skin for their own ephemeral emotional jerk off is to allow someone to step on your head in order to reach a goal that others have pressed on them and that ultimately means nothing in the scale of their own life. Reach out to friends, be a comforting ear to others who have suffered that same fate and heal together if you’ve been hurt. Work on self improvement, not on letting others influence who you should be happy to be.
We are all unique, that’s the beauty of this world.
