We may not recognize him as a bully at the time, but we love to watch him in action. The way he can push his way through a problem without apprehension or concern for repercussions gets us all worked up.

We get vicarious gratification seeing someone use brute force to get his way. It must be so refreshing, we think, to live that way—not have to worry about consequences or other people—just muscle and scream your way though a problem. Lie and deny whenever necessary to get your way. How great it must be to just fabricate your way to success.

The bully’s mantra is “I do what I want.” The bully doesn’t want to think about it. He just wants to do it, and the simplicity and ease of that is appealing.

But there is one thing we love more than the bully, and that is seeing the bully get taken down.

Once someone stands up to the bully, it is easier to see through the facade. Only then do many of us recognize the bully for what he is—a weak-willed, self-serving jerk. We can see that despite words or actions that may give the impression that he is a protector or advocate, he has only one goal and that is to empower himself at the expense of others. It is his nature and what defines him.

He is a cheat and will destroy you without a second thought if it means fattening his own coffers.

When that becomes clear to us, we love watching the bully fail. When we realize that he will ultimately harm us, that we are his victims now or in the future, we enjoy watching him flounder.

But it should not take relating it back to ourselves to recognize the bully and wanting him ruined. We should not have to ask ourselves, What if it was me that he was attacking? What if it was my family or my friends? That’s not what it’s about. Being human is more than that.

Being human is wanting something better for other people not because it serves us but because it serves them. The bully tries to destroy that beautiful idea.

Don’t let him. See the bully for what he is. Confront him, expose him, and take him down.