Fights are not a scarce topic here at Central Hardin. It feels like every corner you turn, someone’s talking about a fight or there’s actually one going on.

You may even notice students pulling out their phones to take a quick video to be the most popular kid in school, instead of questioning and focusing on why others would feel the necessity to get into a fight. 

Now, we all get into arguments with others around us. Our parents, siblings, and friends are among the most common people to have a disagreement with. We all even get into or have been involved in drama throughout our school experience, and have probably said some things that we didn’t mean. Having a physical confrontation, though, is different from just the normal time-to-time fight and can even change an individual’s life.

“From my experience, the students who seem to do that [fight] have hit their limit, so to speak,” assistant principal Matt Baucum said.

The reaching point of any argument can make us all do some things that we regret, but why may someone want to put their hands on another person when they have reached their “limit”?

Once, I was talking to a therapist about the comparison between a patient with depression, and a patient with anger issues. She told me that really nothing is different in what they are thinking psychologically.

That is when she introduced me to the “iceberg” concept. 

The iceberg concept is when a person could have lots of issues or problems deep within. Anxiety, depression, or a feeling of loneliness and being trapped are just some of the few internal issues people may deal with. Guess what the easiest emotion to show out of all of those is? Anger. It is the tip of the iceberg when we have no idea what’s going on under water.

This does not mean that students or people far into adulthood are bad people or that they will never be able to hold the reins on their emotions.

“Good kids make bad decisions and bad kids make good decisions,” assistant principal Dan Corely said. “Anybody’s capable of anything; there’s not a pattern, it’s just drama.”

Now, students in these situations can be so caught up in the heat of the drama, moment, or fight, trying to reason with them is definitely difficult.

“A distraction can sometimes be exactly what’s needed to stop someone in their angry tracks,” medical reviewer Kendra Kubala said.

According to Kubala, distracting a person when in an angry state can interrupt their tirade of feelings and give that person a chance to pause and reflect on their behavior.

Fighting is something we see a lot of here at school, and we need to see a lot less of it. If you are thinking about getting into a fight with someone, we both know that it’s not going to end well. Both students will be sent to the office and maybe even be expelled from school. There is no point; fighting will not change the past but it may change your future.