Recently I was talking to someone who is struggling financially. They are living paycheck to paycheck, but by no means teetering on the end. Good job with good pay. However, I noticed this particular person goes out to eat for lunch quite often. I then made the suggestion to this person that they scale back on the number of times the go out to eat. They responded by saying "well, everyone else does it so why shouldn't I be able to do the same"? Does peer pressure ever end? People have crazy ideas like they need to get married by a certain age, or go back to school, or listen to a certain type of music, vote a certain way, and in general behave professionally. Peer pressure never ends, adults teach children to not give in to peer pressure but never teach it to themselves.
This. 100 times. It would be peer pressure if his co-workers ganged up and were almost forcing him to go or making him feel guilty about not going or something. This guys just has no self control and that's precisely why he's in financial trouble. The pressure is coming from within, not from peers.
if everyone jumped off a bridge, then would you? that's the standard rebuttal to anyone who relies on "everyone else is doing it" as their argument for why they are doing something.
Peer pressure never ends because people need other people to validate their life decisions. I am fat, poor, single, childless and often very happy. If you have put a lot of effort into your waistline, wallet and family, I can see where you would think that is spitting in your face, and that I am self delusional because any one of those things is supposed to make you miserable. On my bad days, I do the same thing to others, how can you not want to read, why would you want to spend so much time in the gym....how can you feel spiritually fulfilled without trying to create art. When the reality is, someone else following MY bliss would feel bored (reading about things instead of living them)....fat and ugly......and stupid (for working so very hard mostly for free). People (even me)....feel the pressure to validate their own decisions, so we put pressure on others to conform. But the dirty secret is you can opt-out at any time. Like the Eagles sang, "So often times it happens, that we live our lives in chains, and we never even know we have the key"
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/dynamicdog/499424943/" title="pulp fiction watch by dynamicdog, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/217/499424943_4f48d95ad4.jpg" width="250" height="192" alt="pulp fiction watch"></a>
My late golf buddy and I both worked in the golf business, years in the pro shop together, which means M-Th mornings you deal with a lot of seniors. One morning he turned to me and asked " at what point do you just stop buying new clothes, you just say screw it, I'm going with these for the rest of my life?" So I'm going to agree, peer pressure ends when you get old.
Bingo. I find that the utterance of "go **** yourself" is usually is a good start to ending peer pressure.
The person's response doesn't indicate peer pressure. It indicates a child-like selfishness. "well, everyone else does it so why shouldn't I be able to do the same"? That statement indicates they want, want, want. If the statement had been: "I usually eat out at lunch because my coworker and boss tend to have lunch together and I feel it is best to go with them." That would be peer pressure. Not: "The kid down the street can play Mortal Kombat, so why can't I"
