To my peers:

Over the last few days, I've heard comments about someone in our school. The comments were along the lines of that someone being too spoiled, that someone being hypercritical (mostly non-verbally), and that someone being more inquisitive than necessary. These may seem insignificant in nature, these subjects being "just an opinion" but I want to make this clear–that is an example of bullying.

Ah, that word. We've seen it countless times in elementary and middle school, but we don't recognize it much in high school unless someone got physical or yelled inappropriately at someone. Much of bullying discussed in elementary and middle school are now referred to as "opinions", so it makes it sound like they have a right to say something mean about someone else.

I'm not saying that I'm not guilty of this, but some people pass it off and don't realize it. This situation I talked about above is not an exception.

Why is it not an exception? Why am I repeating what most of you supposedly already know? Refer to the following:

It is not our position to judge him/her on his/her behavior.  If this person is causing harm physically or emotionally, or if this person doesn't complete tasks that he/she is supposed to, authority will take care of it. They pass the judgement on that specific part, and hopefully provide resources to fix it. It's possible he/she has a deep insecurity about the flaws others point out. Try to look for something you enjoy about that individual because–trust me–there are good qualities all of the people in our school. Yes, all.

It's a cliché for a reason: "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." If this person rubs you the wrong way, you don't have to hang out with them, talk to them, or talk about them. Focus on what you need to do to better yourself, not on what you think other people need to work on themselves.

It's not likely that you genuinely have gotten to know this person or made an actually substantial effort to do so. Maybe this person isn't good with people because he/she is scared; maybe not. Maybe this person has socioeconomic issues; maybe not. Maybe this person has never been good at making/keeping friends, so a continued effort to befriend this person would help him/her remember that someone cares; maybe not.

My point: just try to be a nice person, which most of the time, the people in our school are. However, if you don't have the energy to lift others up, don't use it to put others down. Don't make assumptions