I dont wanna be a punching bag

Imagine yourself being constantly in the line of fire. Everyone around you seems to just shout at you, for no apparent reason. Each and every move of yours is kept under the microscope and you are criticized at all possible instances. You develop such a feeling of apprehension, that when you are not alone, you feel like being a part of a play, acting on stage, with a big audience watching you closely and you having that feeling of nervousness in your gut which constantly pricks you not to go wrong anytime during your act. Because you know, the moment you falter, the audience is either going to laugh or make some shrewd comment and you are going to be the punching bag.

Fundamentally, one can react in two different ways when presented with such a situation. The first one, which is widely preached and often the least practiced, is to be calm and let the dogs bark. You are told to ignore these filthy creatures around you and keep yourself calm and composed. Concentrate inwards rather than falling into the trap of this hostility around you. As Mr. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi once told, if the enemy slaps you on one cheek you present the other one in front of him. But at the same time, as Munnabhai told, you really don’t understand what to do when the enemy slaps on the other one too. According to me, there is a limit until which you can exhibit such a behavior. No one can keep on being calm when posed with such a situation without suppressing his self respect. Somewhere he will curse himself for being quiet when others were poking him unprovoked.

The other way, one which is widely practiced, is to hit back. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth doesn’t matter if you leave half the world blind. Because it’s important to make the other person realize how exactly you feel when the same is inflicted upon you. He needs to taste his own medicine. He needs to realize that he just can’t keep on trampling you, as if you were some weak little puppy, at whom any bullish dog can just keep on barking. And supposedly, this boosts your confidence and induces a feeling of superior self respect.

However one may react to such a situation, what goes beyond my understanding is why do people behave this way? What pleasure do they get in unnecessarily condemning and keep on poking other people, who rarely do the same to them? Is it a result of weak self confidence in them which is making them to become aggressive for the sake of their own defense? Or is it because they themselves feel inferior in some way & to overcome that feeling they want to suppress their so called opponent in any possible way?

Apart from the occasional anger and disgust, mostly I feel pity for such people. They just can’t realize how much they are loosing by being like this. Maybe they are happy and contended in their own small world, but on the whole they are just living inside a box. They can’t see the happiness and pleasure one gets by being in harmony with people around him.