Don’t Give Up (Not Before Trying)

When I was at the Academy of Fine Arts, we used to attend art exhibitions quite often, starting with receptions with painters, sculptors, graphic artists, etc.

Once I was at a museum in Besiktas, Istanbul with my friends for such a reception.

We examined the exhibition, talked a while, drank something, ate something, and finally it was time to leave.

Museum building was the part of an old palace remained from Ottoman period. There was a long walk path from the museum gates to the garden gates, paralleled to a side street, opening to the main boulevard.

We were about Continue reading →

If Jesus Christ Was God’s Incarnate, Then I Am, Too!

First of all, I don’t want to sound like attacking anyone’s religion, which is one of the things I’ll never do. These are just my own thoughts, and just an analyzing a notion, that’s all. Let’s say I’m thinking loud. It’s not forbidden to think, right?

In all the great and established religions, we see prophets or prophets and books. Some divine representative was born among mankind, and he showed the way to God, Jehovah, or Allah.

This is something I can accept easily as a Sufi-spiritual person. But the notion of one of these prophets as the incarnation of Continue reading →

I Wasn't A Bully; I Was A "Wounded" Tough Guy!

I was known as a tough guy, who walks around with a sullen face all the time, and would talk to nobody but a few well chosen friends.
Some of my peers would even exaggerate my situation to the point they would see me as a hoodlum.
Perhaps they weren’t so wrong after all, because if, in the cafeteria, I’d like to sit somewhere already taken, I would walk directly to the guy sitting there and say, “Hey, get up, the place is mine!”
And he would leave the place, because of the scary aura I created knowingly.
My reason Continue reading →

8 Measures You Can Take Against Bullies

Did you know the biggest scar in the process of bullying is for the bullies’ themselves, and for the rest of their lives?

When they grow up enough to understand the notion of empathy, they feel ashamed for what they did to others in their past.

This harms their self-esteem, and mostly – due to the fact they don’t know any other way around, and because they are left alone due to their manners, so they feel angrier than ever – they continue to their lives as aggressive people who are actually fearful within themselves.

The most powerful cure to Continue reading →

Why Do We Become A Target for Bullies?

Simply… because we attract them… because actually we are one of them.
You should understand this principle first: hatred is hatred.
What differs is how you channelize it.
Either you push it out and become an aggressive person, or you swallow your hatred, and become a weak and squashed one.
But there is hatred in both versions, that’s for sure.
Remember the father of my student whom I mentioned about in my article titled Are You A Target for Bullies? Then You Are Probably One of Them?
His source of “being bully” was his father, because he was a monster Continue reading →

Are You A Target for Bullies? Then You Are Probably One of Them!

When I was at my late twenties, I had a student for private English lessons. I was teaching him at our home which I lived with my parents. He was a teenager, and was attending to a school nearby.
Someday he was really late for the session, and because then we didn’t have cell phones so common as today, I had no means to call him and ask where he was.

He was one hour late already, so I decided leave home. But as soon as I stepped through the door, he was there with a black eye, and with Continue reading →

Why Don't You Do It Again?

It was the first hours in the morning. I woke up writhing with a sharp pain in my stomach. It was hurting through the evening, but it became worse all suddenly while I was asleep. But I wasn’t sure what hurt most; the pain, or the cause of that pain?
I often see some boys who are bullied around by their peers at school in movies or read about them in novels. Yeah, and I know probably many of us had the experience at some point of our lives.
But for me, it was like how it was for Continue reading →