{"id":214,"date":"2015-11-18T11:59:59","date_gmt":"2015-11-18T16:59:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/acutabove.wpengine.com\/?p=214"},"modified":"2015-12-03T15:25:25","modified_gmt":"2015-12-03T20:25:25","slug":"words-matter-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?p=214","title":{"rendered":"Words matter"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Kailtyn Argue<\/strong>
\nEMS Press
\nTraverse City East MS
\n1st Place
\nMS, News Writing
\nByline Opinion Article<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me so they say. Let me tell you the ugly truth, words kill people. Choose them carefully. For youth between the ages of 10 and 24, suicide is the third leading cause of death. It results in approximately 4600 lives lost each year and a leading cause is bullying.<\/p>\n

Before I go on here\u2019s a little background story. This is coming from someone that has spent many years doing exactly what I\u2019m about to tell you not to. It\u2019s only taken me thirteen years to figure out that listening to other\u2019s criticism is not worth it. I\u2019ve have spent hours feeling worthless and ugly and I would drown myself in the pain that people put on me and the pain I brought on myself. But my struggles have made me realize one of the most important lessons life has to offer. I found that there are two kinds of people in this world — the ones who will knock you down and the ones who will pick up.<\/p>\n

It may seem dramatic but most teenage girls can take one look at themselves and find something wrong. But bullies have only as much power as we give them. If someone tells you\u2019re fat, it will only hurt you if you believe it. If we tell ourselves that those words truly hurt us, then they will, and you won\u2019t forget them. They will be in the back of your mind constantly, reminding you of your worthlessness and never let you forget it..<\/p>\n

My first tip is to ditch the labels. Somehow we let labels replace our names. We only see ourselves as the sum of our flaws. Fat. Ugly. Stupid. Boring. They\u2019re just words. So why is it that we give them the power to hurt us? We let those words walk all over us and they make us feel like crap. If you do this too, it doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re crazy. It just means you\u2019re human. Most of the time we\u2019re our own biggest bullies. We see the flaws in ourselves and let them overpower the good things in us — the things that make us who we are. We waste hours trying to hide our flaws and wondering if other people see them too.<\/p>\n

Humor is a great tactic to deal with bullies. If someone tells you you\u2019re fat then just tell them it\u2019s because you\u2019re half elephant and smile or tell them it\u2019s a different form of abs. If you make someone laugh, maybe they will see that they can\u2019t hurt you.<\/p>\n

But the most effective strategy is surrounding yourself with the right people. If someone tries to hurt you, then they\u2019re not worth being friends with. We all have the potential to be great people even if that\u2019s harder to see in some.<\/p>\n

It may be obvious to you when someone makes a hurtful comment, but some people don\u2019t realize they are hurting you. Tell them! Tell them that what they are saying to you hurts and it only makes them look dumb and low. By surrounding yourself with your true friends and family, you will realize how much you mean to them and how worthwhile you really are. As the great Dr. Seuss once said, \u201cTo the world you may just be a person, but to a person you mean the world.\u201d I think that speaks truth to everyone.<\/p>\n

So what I\u2019m telling you is don\u2019t do something you can\u2019t take back. School ends and eventually you never have to see those immature rude people again. Until then, do more of what you love. Do something that makes you happy. Spend time with someone that makes you smile.<\/p>\n

My goal in writing this is to show someone who may be going through what I did that everything turns out. I hope that this helped pick you up and realize that you are beautiful and you are worth it. There is no such thing as an ugly person. We are only what we make of ourselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Kailtyn Argue EMS Press Traverse City East MS 1st Place MS, News Writing Byline Opinion Article<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[54,4],"tags":[48,24],"class_list":["post-214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-bylinedopinionarticle","category-nw","tag-48","tag-divisionms","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Kelsey Parkinson","author_link":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?author=3"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6K0n6-3s","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}