(#5499) Courage not fear!

      We humans all have a purpose in life. That being like John Stuart Mill so simply put as "do no harm". If we all start from the position of doing no harm we can be certainly assured that no intentional harm will ever exist. Yet we have those in society that do not heed this simple truth of not doing harm. So when they deem it their duty to do harm we who see this harm must respond. We cannot defeat harm without force. I have tried in vain to stop as an example the harm causing bully with kindness, intelligence and compassion but if anything it encourageous the bully to be even more a bully. So force is the only option left to stop harm.
     In the example of the bully too many of us know that being courageous and standing up to the bully is very difficult and at times impossible. In my own young battle against a bully I often found myself frozen with fear and unable to respond in any admirable way. In time though I realized that being frozen with fear was not going to solve my problem of being bullied. I was forced to understand that the bullying would not stop until I stood up to the bully. Which was what I did at that early age. After that the bully stopped bullying me and even stopped being a bully in general. We both learned from our physical altercation, me that courage is a good thing and him that bullying was a bad thing.
     That lesson has always stood with me despite my own frailties. Standing up to the bully not only helps the bullied but it also becomes a lesson for the bully to learn that harm to others is not a good thing when harm to them is the answer back. What is happening in Ukraine now with putin and his kremlin bullies trying to harm the Ukrainians and others must be stopped and it won't be through kindness, intelligence and compassion. It will be stopped by courage and standing up to the bully. Ukraine has shown that courage in such an admirable way that we could all learn from their outstanding example of how to deal with a bully. Now all we in the civilized world need to do is support the courage that Ukraine is showing against the bully putin and back them with all our heart, mind, and soul.