The pac­ka­ges had white stic­kers with a pic­tu­re of a red crys­tal glass. They had stic­kers on all si­des. In ad­di­ti­on to those stic­kers, there were ot­hers that said: ”Fra­gi­le. Hand­le with care.” From fif­ty ye­ars ago, I still re­mem­ber the inst­ruc­ti­ons for hand­ling such pac­ka­ges: “Do not throw. Do not le­a­ve un­der ot­her pac­ka­ges. Hand­le with care”.

The sen­der trus­ted that the mail staff would bring their pac­ka­ge un­har­med to its des­ti­na­ti­on. The re­ci­pient ex­pec­ted to re­cei­ve the pac­ka­ge whole and un­da­ma­ged. My task as the mail­man was to make sure that not­hing hap­pe­ned to the mar­ked pro­duct du­ring the trans­por­ta­ti­on. All of the three par­ties in­vol­ved, the sen­der, the re­ci­pient and the trans­por­ter, had the same goal: not to break the fra­gi­le pro­duct.

I re­cent­ly re­cei­ved a pac­ka­ge with stic­kers that la­bel­led it as fra­gi­le. The con­tent of my pac­ka­ge was in­tact.

Couldn’t the sym­bol on that stic­ker al­so ap­p­ly to us as hu­man beings? How do we treat each ot­her? Do we re­cog­ni­ze all things that are fra­gi­le around us?

Bul­lying at school has been a to­pic of con­cern and wor­ry for de­ca­des. I re­mem­ber ins­tan­ces of bul­lying that I wit­nes­sed in pri­ma­ry school in the 1960s. At that time, ho­we­ver, bul­lying was not such a hot to­pic as it is now. Ma­y­be pe­op­le did not yet un­ders­tand the deep wounds that bul­lying may le­a­ve in a child and of­ten al­so in their pa­rents, who may have to fol­low po­wer­les­s­ly how their own and their child’s minds are bro­ken.

Now, de­ca­des la­ter, pe­op­le are se­ri­ous­ly wor­ried about bul­lying. It seems that bul­lying is not rest­ric­ted to child­ren at a ten­der age. There is al­so bul­lying of adults at workp­la­ces.

I so­me­ti­mes won­der if there exist strong pe­op­le who are not hurt by bul­lying, like pe­op­le made of thick crys­tal. Pe­op­le who are not hurt by ac­cu­sa­ti­ons, rocks thrown at them, evil words spo­ken be­hind their backs. All things cal­led bul­lying.

I be­lie­ve that no-one can live a nor­mal life if bom­bar­ded by a cons­tant stream of evil com­ments and bul­lying. Even crys­tal fi­nal­ly bre­aks.

We so­me­ti­mes try to fix va­lu­ab­le ob­jects that have bro­ken. We may suc­ceed so well that it is ea­sy to ima­gi­ne what the ob­ject was like be­fo­re it broke. But it is al­wa­ys dif­fi­cult to hide all signs of the re­pair pro­cess. We ea­si­ly re­a­li­ze that the ob­ject was on­ce bro­ken and re­pai­red be­cau­se the signs of re­pair are vi­sib­le.

We live as ci­ti­zens of two lands, and the ye­ars and de­ca­des of life le­a­ve us with marks or scars. We may even be proud of some of them. Not all scars are bad enough to trau­ma­ti­ze a per­son’s life. We feel ab­le to share many of our marks of life with our friends or so­me­ti­mes even with pe­op­le we hard­ly know.

But there are al­so pe­op­le among us who lack the strength or cou­ra­ge to share the scars they have hid­den deep in their souls. Af­ter ye­ars or even de­ca­des of bul­lying, they have lost their trust in ot­her pe­op­le. Their scars are nor vi­sib­le on the out­si­de.

Yet the scars are there. The per­son may be awa­re of them dai­ly, fee­ling their harm­ful im­pact ye­ar af­ter ye­ar. There may have been at­tempts to re­pair them. But it is dif­fi­cult and time-con­su­ming to re­pair so­met­hing that has been bad­ly bro­ken. And af­ter all that ef­fort, scars may still re­main.

Whe­ne­ver I come ac­ross the Fra­gi­le stic­ker, I am re­min­ded about this. If on­ly we could all wear that stic­ker vi­sib­ly on our­sel­ves as a re­min­der to treat well all pe­op­le, both pe­op­le we know and those we do not know. They are fra­gi­le and should be hand­led with care.

Text: Jou­ni Le­so­nen

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen