If someone were to ask you to change something about yourself, would you do it? Would you change your uniqueness to please someone else, that may not be there tomorrow? Every day it feels like there is always someone that is going to find something about you that they don’t like. Why should that bother you? That’s their loss, not yours.
We live in the era of peer pressure. Some of us don’t even realize that we are being peer pressured into anything until we look at the events after they have happened. Think about it, do you think that you would have done most of things that you had previously said that you’re against if someone hadn’t pressured you into it? Sometimes, that is not the case. Once we leave home for the first time, we gain a new perspective on life because we do not have our parent’s disapproval towards anything. That isn’t bad thing, we need to often live to learn.
However, no amount of peer pressure is an excuse for cheating on your boyfriend or back stabbing your friends. At the end of the day, you need to think before you do anything. If you do not have a clear mind when trying something new, that is often yourself telling you that it a bad idea and you shouldn’t do it. Think of the possibilities before you do something because you do not want to risk any of your close relationships just to please someone that means nothing to you. If someone is pressuring you to do anything, they are not worth your time. Real friends don’t talk you into doing anything that you don’t want to do.
Although we are all at an age where we all know what peer pressure is, we all still fall into pressuring people ourselves. We don’t know that we are doing it in the moment, but maybe we all need to open our eyes a little more before encouraging that friend to take one more shot or to go hook up with that person at the bar. Let people make their own decisions. As friends, all we can do is give our best advice and hope that our friends make the choice that is best for them. Right now, we all need love and support in our lives, and to give that love and support we all must be open minded about other people’s feelings.