Take the anti-insult challenge

If you stop to think about it, you hear insults so many times on a daily basis that you couldn’t ever possibly keep track of it. High school is a constant wave of negative language, so much so that most people have developed “selective hearing” in regards to the majority of it. How many times has everyone heard (but not really listened to) the expressions, “That’s so gay!”  or “Don’t be such an idiot!” or “Shut up, nobody loves you?” Probably far too many. I know I have.

It’s tiring to hear such an immense amount of negativity—and many don’t even realize it. When you say something like that, it’s not a big deal for you. But do you have any idea of how many times the person on the receiving end of your snide comment has already heard such things that day? Do you stop to think that they might already be having an awful day and you are just adding to their stress? No, most likely not.

So naturally I got excited when I heard about No Name Calling Week. (Although it had already passed by that time, I still wanted to spread the word about it.) Honored during the last week of January, it was intentionally meant for grade schoolers, in an effort to reduce general harassment, name-calling, and bullying.  But don’t we high schoolers need a refresher course on those kinds of things too? Oftentimes we’re even worse than elementary kids are when it comes to insults!

It is a huge problem that is vastly ignored by everyone, and it shouldn’t be. Why do teachers crack down so much on curse words, but not things that can be even more hurtful to someone, things like common insults that no one really stops to think about?

Okay, okay, I can see you rolling your eyes at me. But I am serious. Try it—try not insulting anyone for an entire week. Heck, just try it for a day; I bet you can’t do it. But at least attempt to think before you say something that might hurt someone. It might make an enormous difference if you do.