Conditional Reality

You can adhere to your pacifist values for weeks or months, politely asking the bully to please refrain from taunting you, poking at you, slapping your head, punching your shoulder, and goading you with incessant indignities. But you won’t get any respect until you finally seize the bothersome pip-squeak and spin him around and release him flying through the air to come down tumbling in a heap on the hard ground. He will be mostly unhurt but he will not be picking at you anymore and classmates will look at you with renewed interest, wanting you to join their club.