Imagine that you were walking down the street, minding your own business, when out of the blue a strange person starts yelling abuse at you. I mean really yelling, and it’s quite personal stuff that’s being hurled at you.

Would you sit down on the pavement and start to cry as a result of this onslaught? Would you retaliate and give as good as you got? Would you pull out your smartphone and make a recording of the abuse so that you can present it to the gardaí or your local politician, public representative or local media? Would you continue walking, pretending to ignore this person, but deep down you’re seething with anger that stays with you for the rest of the day?

Eleanor Roosevelt said that no one can put you down without you giving them permission to do so first. I assume that Mrs Roosevelt’s response would be to simply keep on walking. As the saying goes: “Your opinion of me is none of my business.”

The topic of bullying, particularly cyber bullying, is prevalent at the moment. Many of the various workshops and forums around this area seem to focus on how to protect oneself from being bullied, how to recognise bullying, how to report it, how to seek help and how to cope with the emotional distress it often causes etc.

There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot about how not to take offence in the first place. I’m not suggesting for one moment that bullying doesn’t exist or that we should just ignore it. But think about it, if you genuinely didn’t take offence, how much power would the bully have? And by not taking offence, I’m not suggesting that this would rule out recognising it as bullying behaviour that may well need to be addressed.

My question is, what sort of personal traits would you need to have in order not to take offence? Thirteenth century Islamic theologian Ibn Taymiyyah said: “When someone offends me, I think it’s a gift from Allah (God). He (Allah) is teaching me humility.” Maybe anti-bullying campaigns could start here?

Why do we get so hot and bothered about things? Truth is truth. It doesn’t need any defending. And if it doesn’t need any defending, then what is there to take offence about? And where is the need to give offence? Is it not our pride that we our defending in ourselves and attacking in others? Pride has nothing to do with truth.

Jesuit priest Anthony De Mello said: “If what you say is true, then why do you have to shout?” Unfortunately, as a sign of the times, if he were alive today I’d imagine he may change that to “why do you have to shoot?”