Zorgos = “I Will Take Care”

Today is the one-year anniversary of the Zorgos Awards ceremony to close the Zorgos Project. But Zorgos Day is every October 15th, a time to focus on solutions to bullying dynamics.

Zorgos is the Esperanto word for “I will take care.” What’s Esperanto? It’s an international language devised 130 years ago with the hope of uniting the world.

When I co-wrote The Bullying Antidote: Superpower Your Kids for Life with Dr. Louise Hart, we searched high and low for a word that sounded like a superpower yet perfectly symbolizes the opposite of and the cure for bullying dynamics.

When working with kids recently in the Upward Roots young changemakers program at a local elementary school, it was fascinating to see how quickly they came to the same idea. When asked to imagine a place where bullying never happens, they came up with groups of friends, classrooms, and families where people took care of each other.

Bullying is the careless use of power, seeing people as things, being wrapped up in negative emotions, acting selfishly without regard to consequences that may befall others. It’s different from making a mistake because it is persistent and deliberately targets those with less power. But bullying is also a dynamic of seeing others from a victim’s perspective and creating conflict where it need not exist. Most of the people in America can now, easily recognize bullying as it is constantly on display by the iconic resident of the White House. What was once thought to be a playground problem is now being seen as a social-emotional sickness that infects families, schools, communities, and political spheres.

Fortunately, the antidote is readily available and abundant in the world. Nature demonstrates that forces of nurture, of partnership, of cooperation and resource sharing are the dominant paradigm, not domination.

Join me today and every day in sharing this message:

I will take care of my children and family, of my friends and neighbors, of my city, of my work, of my world and essentially, of myself. I will create a culture of caring where bullying has no place. 

Because “Bullying simply does not have a chance to grow in a deeply developed culture of respect and caring.” — The Bullying Antidote

How will YOU take care today?

Tag an image of yourself with the words #zorgos=I will take care.