Stand Strong: You Can Overcome Bullying (and Other Stuff That Keeps You Down) (11 page)

I wish I could have helped them, but at that point, I needed help myself. I had lost my way, lost touch with my faith, and I was pretending to be some other guy who was really nothing like the real me.

Some bullies are subtler than others. They don’t get in your
face and threaten you. Instead, they do their best to manipulate you to serve their own interests. Street gangs often work in this way. They identify someone who is isolated, from a broken family with little parental supervision, and they move to fill the emotional need to be supported and protected. Then, once they have recruited the needy or lost person, they manipulate their new member into doing their dirty work, which may include selling drugs, carrying weapons, beating people, robbery, and other crimes.

These bully “friends” also may try to tell you who you are and what you should do. I let that happen to me for a while. I let others influence how I acted and what I thought of myself. I listened to them instead of that voice inside telling me,
This is wrong. You’re not like this
.

I finally realized I’d wandered far from the real me when Zeke, an older classmate, offered me a cigarette. I may have started swearing to fit in, but I drew the line at ruining my health. It’s hard enough having no limbs, but there’s no way I could survive without good lungs.

It struck me as odd that anyone would look at me or know me even a little and think I’d smoke a cigarette. It’s fairly obvious, or should be, that I’m not exactly built to be a smoker—unless they’ve come up with some sort of hands-free cigarette that I haven’t heard about!

When Zeke first suggested that I smoke, I thought,
He
doesn’t have a clue as to who I am
. A little later, it hit me that I really didn’t know who I was either; otherwise, I wouldn’t have wanted him as a friend.

Again, I’m not putting Zeke down. He wasn’t a bad person. He just wasn’t the sort of person I needed to be hanging out with.

It wasn’t his fault. He assumed I’d like to smoke cigarettes because I’d been presenting myself as that kind of guy—the guy who cursed and acted tough. This was the first time I realized one of the key facts about relationships: people respond to you and treat you according to the way you act, not the way you think or feel.

I may have thought I was still a straight-arrow Christian, but that wasn’t the way I’d been acting. That was clear when he pulled out the cigarette, offered it to me, and said, “Nick, your life must be sh**. I’d be really p***** off if I were you, and I’d want to smoke to help me chill out.”

I couldn’t figure out how smoking a cigarette would dramatically improve my life or reduce any anger issues I might have had. Maybe it’s just me, but it doesn’t sound relaxing to
stuff a burning, paper-wrapped leaf in my mouth so smoke will fill my lungs. I knew people who smoked. Whenever they’d light up around me, the smoke made me cough. It made my clothes stink. I couldn’t understand how any of those things would help me chill out.

My parents had taught me that smoking was bad for my health and that it could destroy my body, which is the temple of God. With all of that in mind, it wasn’t tempting for me at all.

“No thanks. I’m fine,” I told Zeke.

“Are you sure?” he said. “I’ll hold it for you.”

Zeke thought he was doing me a favor. His offer was actually touching, if misguided. This tough guy was reaching out, trying to show that he sympathized and wanted to help.

“No, I’m cool,” I said.

He never asked me again. I reckon Zeke would not have asked me in the first place if I hadn’t given him the impression that smoking might appeal to me. I was putting on a false front and running with a crowd of people who did not bring out the best in me. Some of them, whether intentionally or not, tried to lead me down the path of smoking cigarettes and pot.

Drinking alcohol and taking more serious drugs likely would have been next if I hadn’t come to my senses and returned to a circle of friends whose values were much more in line with who I really was—or should have been.

It’s true that I didn’t have any outside bullies trying to
intimidate me or lead me astray while I was running with the tougher crowd for that short period in high school. Then again, some of my so-called friends from that crowd were subtly nudging me down a path that would have made me more vulnerable to bullying and manipulation.

F
RIENDS FOR
B
ETTER OR
W
ORSE

Most people consider themselves lucky if they have one or two friends they can count on. So don’t put pressure on others or on yourself to create this huge circle of close friends. That’s a rare thing to have in a world where people move around so much. If you have a bunch of buds, that’s wonderful, but even one true friend is a great blessing. The most important thing is to be a friend to yourself, and part of that is to be careful who you hang with.

Your friends can be the best influences in your life. Or they can be the worst. They can protect you from bullying, or they can bully you themselves. That is why it is so important to choose your friends carefully.

Here is my simple guideline to choosing my closest friends and associates: the people I want to keep close and trust the most are those who make me want to be better, smarter, more loving, more open minded, more collaborative, more trustworthy, more empathetic, more faith filled, more God loving, more
grateful, more forgiving, and more open to opportunities to serve God and those around me.

These are the type of friends who will make you and me bully proof. Bullies are less inclined to pick on someone who has a big circle of friends, but even if a bully jumps out of the bushes and ruins your day, it won’t matter over the long run because your close friends will have your back.

A bully can steal only what you put out there for the taking. If you have friends who make you feel good about yourself, who support you and encourage you and challenge you to be the best you can be, then no bully can take that away from you.

Your backup team includes friends who are close to your age and also other key people such as your parents, relatives, teachers, coaches, and clergy leaders. All of them should be positive, trustworthy, supportive, and inspiring. They should make you want to be your best and do your best.

H
AVE
Y
OU
G
OT
B
ACKUP
?

Have you ever taken the time to assess whether the friends and other people close to you are good or bad for you? I’d suggest
you do that. On a separate sheet of paper make a list of the most important people in your life, the biggest influences, and those you spend the most time with. Then for each of them ask these questions:

When you have answered these questions for each of the
people closest to you, look over your responses. Consider whether you need to get closer to the positive influences and farther from those who aren’t so positive. It’s important to be aware of the nature of each relationship you have because sometimes we fall into comfort zones and hold on to relationships that don’t serve us well and may even be harmful.

A
RE THE
F
EELINGS AND THE
F
RIENDSHIP
M
UTUAL
?

Please remember also that you can’t ask others to do for you what you wouldn’t do for them. In fact, I would advise you to give more than you receive to those who support and encourage you. Think of your friendship as a refrigerator you share with a roommate. If you take out bread and sandwich meat for lunch, you need to add some later to be a good roomie. I can’t stress enough how important it is to have positive people in your life and just how dangerous it is to hang out with those who don’t bring out the best in you and maybe even drag you down below your worst.

A teen named Lester wrote to me about his own experiences with this. He described himself as “a rebel child that lived in a broken home.… Over the years, that killed me inside for always being scared and I was never happy. I was bullied when
I was small because I was chubby, and over the years I always had a really low self-esteem.”

Instead of finding friends who helped him feel better and want better for himself, Lester started hanging out with a group of people who brought him down even more.

“I drank alcohol because I thought nobody loved me.… I was looking for happiness in the wrong places. I thought sex, getting girls, alcohol, going to parties, illegal street racing, and pornography was my way out to be happy.”

Lester was headed for serious trouble. His friends were leading him toward a crash and burn. Fortunately, he took a detour that may have saved his life and his afterlife. He found a new circle of friends, including the most important friend of all. He attended a Christian youth convention “where I learned and felt through the Holy Spirit that Jesus Christ loves me and has never left my side.… It totally changed my life.

“God told me there that I was chosen because I heard His voice to serve Him … 100%. I’m studying the Bible right now and reading daily to improve my messages I speak to the youth. Me and my brother are filming a documentary [about] how teenage lives … are today. I also have a youth group that 15 people attend. I live in an area where there are a lot of broken families. Many teenagers are lost and right now my whole life is dedicated to help. I know my purpose … is to be an example to the youth.”

P
URPOSE
B
RINGS
B
ACKUP

As Lester discovered, there is true power in having a purpose. It’s like this magnetic force that attracts others with similar passions. Ever since I declared my purpose in life by creating Life Without Limbs and traveling the world to inspire hope and ignite faith, I have been constantly amazed at the way people from around the world come into my life to support and join me in my mission.

One of them, Ignatius Ho, is a successful accountant and businessman in Hong Kong who is extremely passionate about everything he does, especially in matters of faith. He also has strong feelings about encouraging young people to find their purpose. He has two teenage sons, including one with autism, so Ignatius is especially attuned to those with disabilities.

When he saw one of my videos on YouTube about six years ago, Ignatius decided God wanted him to help me share my message in his native China. I didn’t know this man at all, but his sincerity, selflessness, and high energy won my trust. He is a force of nature.

I joke that if you look up
faith in action
in the dictionary, you will see a picture of Ignatius because he is all about making things happen. When this human dynamo decided he wanted me to tour China, there was no stopping him. He took out a mortgage on his home, sold his car, and rallied support from a
few churches in order to rent the stadium for my first event. Many people told him he was crazy because few Chinese would come to hear a foreigner speak about his Christian faith.

Ignatius told me, “I was forced to give up all my rational thinking and rely totally on God. I had no plan B. There was only a plan A and God would make the way.” His hard work and sacrifices paid off. That event proved to be one of the most amazing days of my life! The stadium was filled beyond capacity. Thousands of people gave their lives to Christ.