My eighth grade consisted of 28 classmates. We knew each other so well that most of us could distinguish each other's handwriting at a glance. Although we grew up together, we still had class outcasts.From second grade on, a small group started harassing   two or three of the others.I was one of those two or three, though I didn't know why.In most cases when children get picked on, they aren't good at sports or they read too much or they wear the wrong clothes or they are of a different race.But in my class, we all read too much and didn't know how to play sports.We had also been brought up to carefully respect each other's race.This is what was so strange about my situation.Usually, people are made outcasts because they are in some way different from the larger group.But in my class, large differences did not exist.It was as if the outcasts were invented by the group out of a need for them. The harassment came in the form of laughter when I talked, and rolled eyes when I turned around.If I was out on the playground and approached a group of people, they often fell silent.Sometimes, someone would not see me coming and I would catch the tail end of a joke at my expense. There was another girl in our class who was perhaps even more rejected than I.She provided the group with a lot of material for jokes.One day one popular girl came up to me to show me something she said I wouldn't want to miss.We walked to a comer of the playground.Three or four girls there were reading aloud from a small book, which I was told was the girl's diary. I sat down and, laughing till my sides hurt, heard my voice finally mixed with the others.Often being accepted by others is more satisfying than being accepted by oneself, even though the satisfaction does not last.Looking back, I wonder how I could have participated in making fun of this girl when I knew perfectly well how it felt.If I were in that situation today I would react differently, but I can't honestly be sure. What does the passage intend to tell us?
Everyone is likely to become an outcast. We shouldn't hit a person when he is down. Everyone has a desire to be accepted by others. One should pay somebody back in his own way.