Most people think that being a bully means that somebody physically harasses someone else, like hitting or punching them, even just pushing them down. That's not what being a bully means.

According to Dictionary, the word bully means "a blustering, quarrelsome, overbearing person who habitually badgers and intimidates smaller or weaker people." Being a bully may include physically harassing another person, but the pain isn't just physical. It's mental, too.

Being a bully means you hurt someone who's smaller or weaker than they are in some way or another as a habit for one reason or another. Hm... it doesn't sound very specific, does it? Well, that's because it's not specific.

At some point or another, you may turn into a bully without meaning to. Maybe you've been bullied and want to take out your anger- you didn't mean to take it out on someone else, but you did.

Do you think bullies try to bully? Do you think victims intend to be bullied? Yeah, maybe bullies do mean to do so, but there's bound to be a reason, right? Some people have that abusive nature in their bloodlines and don't intend to bully others, but they can't help it.

When you see someone bullying someone else, don't just assume that they're just being a jerk. They might have had a rough day. Or maybe they've had enough bullying being done to them and just ended up taking their anger out on someone else.

They're not just being a jerk, and assuming that they are makes you look like you're being one, too. Some people have horrible lives and don't know how to deal with everything, so they do what they know how to do.

Bullying doesn't just come in the form of hurting somebody. It also comes in the form of seeing somebody getting hurt and not caring about it, watching it happen, or just not doing anything to stop. In other words, being a bystander. Don't just stand there. You're a witness. You can speak up and stop bullying when and where it begins. If you do nothing to stop it when you see it, you're just as bad as the bully is. Maybe you're not strong enough to stand up to the bully, but that doesn't mean you just let it happen- tell a teacher. You could potentially save a life in the long run.

Bullying isn't just a face-to-face issue, either. Now that media came along, it's getting worse.

42% of teens with tech access- like myself- report being cyberbullied in the past year. 81% of teens say bullying online is easier to get away with. 3 million kids per month are absent from school due to bullying. 20% of kids cyberbullied think about suicide; 1 in 10 attempt it. 4,500 kids commit suicide each year.

Those statistics come from the website cyberbullyhotline, which also says that some cyberbullying comes from parents or teachers of a child. There are plenty of people out there who have already killed themselves because of bullying. Someone you know could be silently dealing with this on their own, and may one day attempt to take their life.

Now, let me ask you; what does bullying mean?