"peer" pressure
I recently wrote about peer pressure on a message board for the youth group I help out with. I know I didn't elaborate on some things I could have, but it was sort of off-the-cuff. Here it is if you are interested:
I think "peer" pressure is hard, not when people are trying to convince you to do something, that's the easiest "peer" pressure to not give in to, but when it is an in-grained lifestyle to everyone else around, so in-grained that they have no glimmer that anyone could consider it wrong and so they just expect you to do whatever it is. Usually, it's not even that they'll make fun of you, it's that they'll think about you and look at you in the same way they would someone who said they live in an upside-down house - you're just sort of...strange. And then you're never quite one of them and you know it and they don't really KNOW it, they just never invite you to the things they do everyone else or hang out with you etc. And usually it's not one thing like "I don't get drunk" or "I don't have pre-marital sex" it's that all those things that you are just make you a completely different person. "peer" pressure is hard when you're young, but the pressure itself doesn't change when you get older, although you begin to understand more what kind of person you are. I think it gets harder. As hard as it sounds, you CAN walk away from the friends who are pressuring you - at least put some distance in there if they are influencing you to do things you feel you shouldn't - but what happens when you have goen through college, gotten a great career, know you're lucky to have the job you do, and you get "peer" pressure there? And it's worse when it's from a boss who can decide whether or not you or someone else gets a promotion or raise. Do you think it will be the person they feel distant from or the person who they go out and get drunk with and are good buddies with? Or maybe to be "one of the team" it's not even that you have to do something against your morals, you just don't put first what you should. Maybe you have to go to play on the company team instead of spending time with your family that you should for example.
Also, how many of you have ever felt frustrated with someone (probably it will be your mother) who always has to make sure that appearances are good (the house is super clean, you never fight in public etc) You will start (or continue) to feel pressure to at least LOOK perfect from the outside. And this tends to get worse at church. Not only do you have to look perfect - you've got to look "spiritual" too. I think sometimes adults try to believe that "peer" pressure is only something teenagers go through or it's only when a group of people are trying to convince you to get drunk or high or have sex outside of wedlock. This is not true, and I think we're trying to convince ourselves so hard about this so that we can conform without feeling guilty. Making sure appearances are always good are another part of "peer" pressure. And I conform to this every Monday night before women come over to my house when I clean like a mad woman so people won't know that usually my socks are thrown in the corner and my dishes are dirty. Thsi can be simply not wanting your guests to feel uncomfortable amongst your mess, but I think we have all seen when this has been an unholy passion to make others think better about you because you "have it together."
Your entire life people are going to try to convince you to conform - in ways that are sinful and in ways that don't seem to be sinful at all but just aren't - you. Sometimes you will feel you have to do this or that so people don't think you're...strange. Sometimes you'll automatically do things without thinking because everyone around you is and you don't want to get that "so-you're-living-in-an-upside-down-house" look. But "peer" pressure is maybe so powerful because it's based on something....GOOD. God meant to place people together in communities. These communities were meant to be supportive. This means, you're supported and encouraged to live as God would want you to. Community was meant to be...powerful. After all, the church all together, the community of believers is the BRIDE OF CHRIST. When people did things contrary to what believers should do and continued to do them despite warnings and the community trying to exert "positive" peer pressure they were supposed to be let loose from the community of believers (1 Cor 5) If that's not peer pressure, let me know what is! However, while we as Christians are supposed to have a powerful counter-culture, one that would help keep us from the pressures of the world (as we support and encourage one another to live as Christ wants us to), instead we are still caught in the fear of man. That's all "peer" pressure is - the fear of man. In one form or another. Whether it's your friends, co-workers, teachers, or even people who are supposed to be or should be positive in your life like your boss or your pastor, if you are doing anything out of a fear of man, you are sinning. We as Christians are supposed to fear God only (opening up a bag of worms I know - this "fear of God" can be much debated itself). We are not even supposed to fear death. Often what happens with this fear of man is that we feel we have to hide what we really are, who we really are and be like everyone else. My mentor once told me "As we grow closer to God we do not become more similar to each other, we become more different from each other." This is because in the world we conform - in God we become the unique people He wanted us to be. We have freedom! Unfortunately often even in the church people are chastised, whether verbally or not, for being "different."
I guess I would encourage you today to look beyond "peer" pressure. Don't think only about how people are trying to convince you to do sinful things, think also about ways in which you are conforming your personality or any other facet of yourself (even your spiritual gifts) to what other people expect of you. This does not mean going out and being the caustic and sarcastic person you knwo you are because being nice just isn't "you", but this does mean careful analysis of who you are and in what ways you may be conforming out of fear that others will look at you like you live in an upside-down house.
oh yeah - and go eat eggplant because everyone else is doing it. You know you want to.
I think "peer" pressure is hard, not when people are trying to convince you to do something, that's the easiest "peer" pressure to not give in to, but when it is an in-grained lifestyle to everyone else around, so in-grained that they have no glimmer that anyone could consider it wrong and so they just expect you to do whatever it is. Usually, it's not even that they'll make fun of you, it's that they'll think about you and look at you in the same way they would someone who said they live in an upside-down house - you're just sort of...strange. And then you're never quite one of them and you know it and they don't really KNOW it, they just never invite you to the things they do everyone else or hang out with you etc. And usually it's not one thing like "I don't get drunk" or "I don't have pre-marital sex" it's that all those things that you are just make you a completely different person. "peer" pressure is hard when you're young, but the pressure itself doesn't change when you get older, although you begin to understand more what kind of person you are. I think it gets harder. As hard as it sounds, you CAN walk away from the friends who are pressuring you - at least put some distance in there if they are influencing you to do things you feel you shouldn't - but what happens when you have goen through college, gotten a great career, know you're lucky to have the job you do, and you get "peer" pressure there? And it's worse when it's from a boss who can decide whether or not you or someone else gets a promotion or raise. Do you think it will be the person they feel distant from or the person who they go out and get drunk with and are good buddies with? Or maybe to be "one of the team" it's not even that you have to do something against your morals, you just don't put first what you should. Maybe you have to go to play on the company team instead of spending time with your family that you should for example.
Also, how many of you have ever felt frustrated with someone (probably it will be your mother) who always has to make sure that appearances are good (the house is super clean, you never fight in public etc) You will start (or continue) to feel pressure to at least LOOK perfect from the outside. And this tends to get worse at church. Not only do you have to look perfect - you've got to look "spiritual" too. I think sometimes adults try to believe that "peer" pressure is only something teenagers go through or it's only when a group of people are trying to convince you to get drunk or high or have sex outside of wedlock. This is not true, and I think we're trying to convince ourselves so hard about this so that we can conform without feeling guilty. Making sure appearances are always good are another part of "peer" pressure. And I conform to this every Monday night before women come over to my house when I clean like a mad woman so people won't know that usually my socks are thrown in the corner and my dishes are dirty. Thsi can be simply not wanting your guests to feel uncomfortable amongst your mess, but I think we have all seen when this has been an unholy passion to make others think better about you because you "have it together."
Your entire life people are going to try to convince you to conform - in ways that are sinful and in ways that don't seem to be sinful at all but just aren't - you. Sometimes you will feel you have to do this or that so people don't think you're...strange. Sometimes you'll automatically do things without thinking because everyone around you is and you don't want to get that "so-you're-living-in-an-upside-down-house" look. But "peer" pressure is maybe so powerful because it's based on something....GOOD. God meant to place people together in communities. These communities were meant to be supportive. This means, you're supported and encouraged to live as God would want you to. Community was meant to be...powerful. After all, the church all together, the community of believers is the BRIDE OF CHRIST. When people did things contrary to what believers should do and continued to do them despite warnings and the community trying to exert "positive" peer pressure they were supposed to be let loose from the community of believers (1 Cor 5) If that's not peer pressure, let me know what is! However, while we as Christians are supposed to have a powerful counter-culture, one that would help keep us from the pressures of the world (as we support and encourage one another to live as Christ wants us to), instead we are still caught in the fear of man. That's all "peer" pressure is - the fear of man. In one form or another. Whether it's your friends, co-workers, teachers, or even people who are supposed to be or should be positive in your life like your boss or your pastor, if you are doing anything out of a fear of man, you are sinning. We as Christians are supposed to fear God only (opening up a bag of worms I know - this "fear of God" can be much debated itself). We are not even supposed to fear death. Often what happens with this fear of man is that we feel we have to hide what we really are, who we really are and be like everyone else. My mentor once told me "As we grow closer to God we do not become more similar to each other, we become more different from each other." This is because in the world we conform - in God we become the unique people He wanted us to be. We have freedom! Unfortunately often even in the church people are chastised, whether verbally or not, for being "different."
I guess I would encourage you today to look beyond "peer" pressure. Don't think only about how people are trying to convince you to do sinful things, think also about ways in which you are conforming your personality or any other facet of yourself (even your spiritual gifts) to what other people expect of you. This does not mean going out and being the caustic and sarcastic person you knwo you are because being nice just isn't "you", but this does mean careful analysis of who you are and in what ways you may be conforming out of fear that others will look at you like you live in an upside-down house.
oh yeah - and go eat eggplant because everyone else is doing it. You know you want to.
posted by Xana Ender @ 2:31 PM
2 Comments:
At 8:57 AM,
Jeanine said…
Well put. Just as conforming shouldn't be done for the sake of conforming, rebelling shouldn't be done for the sake of rebelling. Isn't there a verse somewhere about having a purpose behind what you do and say? And I think that's sort of the root of what you're speaking of here.
At 9:16 AM,
Xana Ender said…
Well, I guess that could be part of it. I think I'm trying more to say that negative peer pressure can sometimes be seeming to conform to good things (If they aren't the things God intended for YOU) and that peer pressure is powerful because it was meant to be good in that it should be a tool to support and encourage people to be righteous and turn from their fleshly desires.
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