Peer Pressure. Another double edged sword.

Why do we make the choices that we do? Why do we do or not certain things in our life? In a perfect world there would be two very simple answers to these questions. Conscience and desire. In a perfect world our decisions would be based solely on doing some combination of what we know to be right and what we want to do. And in the absolute best of circumstances what we want and what is right would be the same.

But we don't live in that perfect world do we? There is another thing which creeps in and often takes control over our decision making process. That thing is peer pressure. And it is certainly not a simple thing. It is complex and often angst ridden and frustrating. We quite often know what we want to do and what we should do, but due to peer pressure we end up making a different choice. Why?

While thinking about this today, I came across an article someone had posted on Facebook entitled

15 Things You Don't Owe Anyone At All (Though You Think You Do)

The bottom line is really fear. How does this work? How is it that much of our decision making process is ruled by fear? Well to understand that we really need to take a look at what peer pressure is. According to dictionary.com peer pressure is social pressure by members of one's peer group to take a certain action, adopt certain values, or otherwise conform in order to be accepted.

I think a little more in depth of an explanation is needed. Generally your peers are the people whose opinions matter to you. They are all of your friends and family. Most of us decide that being cool in their eyes is important. And we will often go to great lengths, many times violating our own personal code of ethics and our personal desires in order to be accepted by our primary peer group(s).

We fear not being cool or accepted by the opinions of those that matter to us and often that alone will cause us to do terrible, mean, sometimes downright despicable things. We feel forced to act a certain way even if we are not being told exactly what to say or do. Much of the time the actions of our peers and the surrounding circumstances very strongly imply what we are "supposed" to do. 

If you are out with a group of your friends and they happen to pick on how someone is dressed or looks, some facet of their social life, their race or sexual preference, it is hard for some of us to stand up to the bullying and make them stop attacking their target. It is the right thing to do, but still not very easy. Our desire to do the right thing is overridden by our fear of not being one of the "cool kids". You can deny that it matters to you until you are blue in the face, but if you give in to peer pressure, then being accepted matters to you.

Peer pressure is what causes us to allow our families to have such a big say in our lives, even after we become adults. We want their acceptance so even though they no longer have any legally binding control over us we nod our heads and say they are right and do pretty much what they want, so that they will still love and accept us. 

Truth be told, anyone that holds their love and acceptance hostage to you agreeing with what they say or do isn't worth looking to for love or acceptance. You should be who and what you want to be independent of what others are going to say or think. 

Now having said that, is peer pressure always a bad thing? Well it is the collective thoughts and opinions of how you should and shouldn't act according to your friends and family and to a larger degree the whole world. Aside from it being wrong, to a certain degree, peer pressure is what keeps most of us from acting out in horribly violent ways when something doesn't go our way. From time to time nearly all of us have scary vile chaotic thoughts. 

We think awful things like, I wonder what that person's brains would look like oozing out of their ears if I hit them with this hammer just right. Or, if I kill this person they won't be making my life a living hell anymore. If I open the passenger door and kick this person out of my car while we are doing sixty I won't have to listen to this insufferable nagging. We don't act on those thoughts, because it is wrong and because we think about how everyone else will react to such a horrible scene.

So while peer pressure can steer us wrong, it can also keep us on the up and up. Until we reach that perfect world, where what is right and what we desire are constantly uniform, use common sense to show you when a few dashes of peer pressure are okay and when you should stand firmly against the tide for what you believe in.
 

How integral is integrity?

A lot of people when they think of integrity think of knights from stories long ago. Integrity isn't just an antiquated outdated concept. Frequently we hear that integrity is a very important quality to have in an employee, a romantic partner or a friend. But what is it? What is integrity?

 
According to dictionary.com integrity is adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty.

Let's say the company you work for makes hi-tech weaponry, under government contract, for the U.S. military. If they just hired any random person off the street, that person might decide to put some more money in their own pocket by selling the blueprints to other countries. 

 

This would be both highly illegal and extremely unethical. In this type of situation it is very important to be able to trust the person that you have working for you. A person who has integrity would not find it within their own abilities to make the traitorous choice. Their moral code would prevent such a thing from even being an option.

Many partners in long term relationships get bored and decide to play the field so to speak. Circumstances may just happen to fall in such a way as to make it easy for them to cheat on their mate. Consistent long hours  at work or forced separation due to a job where one or the other is constantly traveling often open the doors to temptation. A person of integrity however, would feel honor bound to not stray. 

Often people make complete fools of themselves and ask other people's opinions. Let's say you are wearing a completely ridiculous hat. Or you want to know if a particular dress makes you look fat. Most people will tell you what you want to hear. They will say no that hat looks fine or nah you look great in that dress. But the truth is they will be snickering and laughing at you behind your back. 

 

The old story about the emperor's new clothing is a perfect example of a society without integrity. A person of integrity will tell you what you need to hear rather than what you want to hear.

 

Come to think of it integrity includes or is directly linked to most of the traits that we find good in other people. Honor, honesty,ethics,loyalty,self control,politeness,reliability, responsibility,maturity,  and knowing what is right and what is wrong and deliberately choosing right, even when it is the more difficult of the options available. It is somewhat of the lynchpin that many good traits revolve around. If you surround yourself with people who have integrity you will see many of the those other things will just fall in line all around you.

Think about the people that you know. How many of them would you say have integrity as part their overall character? Now think about which ones do have it and which ones don't. Which are the more positive influences on your life? Which are people that you feel you should spend more time around if you could? And which should you avoid?

 

Do not judge others by your beliefs in right and wrong

As children, we are blank slates. We have no idea what is right or wrong except what others tell us. It is others that teach us what is okay and what is not. So, to a large degree our beliefs start out as the beliefs and feelings of others. There comes a point though where our minds have developed to a certain degree and we begin deciding for ourselves what we should and should not do. Often we begin to disagree with many of the same people that helped us form our original beliefs in what is right and wrong.

Over time, we find that, we all have our own interpretation of what is right and wrong. And we tend to place different levels of value on people based on whether they are doing what we believe is right or wrong. Heated debates, arguments, fights and even wars break out over such differences in opinion.

Each man or woman believes that he or she is righteous as long as he or she is following their own code of right and wrong to the letter. We condemn those who do not think and act as we believe they should. In our eyes they are bad people or somehow worth less than we are.

But what makes them any better or worse than us? If we are each following our own code of conduct that we fully believe in, each of us is doing what we believe to be right. How can one be condemned for doing what they believe is right?

The other day, I read something that Dr. Martin Luther King once said. He said "I judge people by their own principles - not by my own.” After much thought, I heartily agree that this would be a much better way of dealing with others.

It has often been said that knowing what is right and intentionally choosing what is wrong is what makes an act evil. If we were all to look at people the way Dr. King did, there would be a lot less discord in the world. Most of the fighting that happens is due to people declaring one another to be wrong or doing wrong without us even really understanding the other person's point of view. We just decide that because it is different from what we believe that it must be wrong.

What we should be doing is opening a dialogue and asking questions until we fully understand the other person's point of view. Why do they think certain things are acceptable? What does the whole picture look like? Often it is what is just around the bend that allows us to reach full understanding of a situation, but we cut others off before they can reveal what is just around the corner.

Then once we understand the other person's point of view and realize that they are in fact saying and doing what they believe is right, we can compare our two belief structures and look for areas where they are similar. Perhaps we can minimize the differences so that they are not so abrasive to one another. Perhaps one or the other may have a change of heart once they fully see things from the other person's point of view. Or maybe one may discover that they held a belief due to a false premise that suddenly becomes more obvious when fairly viewed by an outside party.

If God waits until man is dead to judge him, then truly no man has the right to judge any other. But if we are going to do it anyways, shouldn't we judge a man by his beliefs and not our own?

What is right?

We talk about working together to solve problems. We say that you should work with others to create win-win situations. But how many right answers can there possibly be in a given situation? It seems that our instinct is to say that there is only one right way and the rest of the ways are wrong.

That is not usually true though. Normally there are literally thousands or more possible options in any given circumstance. We just subconsciously decide that most of them are not "real" options.What makes a potential solution good or bad depends on what criterion and limitations we put on the circumstance.

For example let's say that you decide that you have been doing way too many loads of laundry each week. One way to avoid needing to do so much laundry is simply to not wear clothing two days out of the week. This solution is possible, but probably is not feasible if you need to interact with the rest of the world during those two days. You could also decide to wear each set of clothes twice before washing them. Or perhaps you could donate or throw your clothing away after a single use so that washing it never becomes an issue. Maybe you could put more clothing in each load thus decreasing the overall amount of loads that need doing. All are possible, but for different reasons either fit your needs or do not.The circumstances surrounding the issue will usually assist you in eliminating ideas until you are down to a simple choice of A vs B.

The truth of the matter is there really are a lot of solutions. We just shoot most of them down right away. It is part of our natural decision making process that we eliminate the outlandish crazy ideas, the bad ideas and even some of the reasonably good ideas in favor of what we think the "best" idea is. This in and of itself is not so bad.

When it becomes an issue is when we are not the only person involved in a given circumstance. Often what we think is the best idea is the one that works best for us. Then what the other person thinks is the best idea is the one that works the best for them. We then each campaign for our idea and often do not understand the other person's point of view. At this point an argument normally ensues and any hope of productivity goes out the window.

Preventing this is actually pretty simple. All you need to do is this.  Before beginning the process of narrowing down what choices will or won't work and what choices are feasible vs which are just plain silly, each person should voice their concerns about the issue. Then once each person involved understands the concerns of all involved, brainstorming can occur to come up with solutions that adequately handle all the concerns and still manage to solve the problem.

Keep in mind that it helps to be flexible when possible. Others will be more willing to make agreements that are slightly less to their benefit if they see that you are willing to do the same. Sometimes a little bit of compromise in one circumstance will go a long way towards you getting exactly what you want in the next negotiation.

Wolf or sheep

When you are a kid, all through grade school and throughout high school people tell you what to expect throughout your life. Parents, teachers, even other kids tell you how it's gonna be. They tell you what you can and can not do with your life.

Life is hard. The economy is bad. Corporations don't want people, they want wage slaves. You can't trust the other gender.  It has never been harder to find work than it is right now.

At the rate things are going you will never be able to buy a house.  Well intentioned people say things like this all the time. Why?

Other people want you to be prepared for the challenges that life has to offer. They mean well, but what is really happening when they do this? What they are actually doing, without realizing it, is preconditioning you to have the kinds of experiences that they are telling you about.  They are ensuring that you live a life of mediocrity. There are certain facets of life that are common no matter where you look. It is not fair however to take a bright, fresh, young mind  and hamper it with all of these beliefs, to stick those things to you whether you want them or not.

If you trust and believe the people that are telling you these things about your life, then the circumstances of your life will be molded by these things. You will never trust the other gender. You will know that all corporations are evil, have a hard time finding a job, make barely enough money to get by and struggle to ever own a home.

What gives other people the right to mess up kids that way? What gives them the right to tell you what YOUR life is going to be like? The simple answer is nothing. They are telling you that life is a certain way. What they mean is that their lives are that way. All these well meaning people are just telling you about the limitations that they have allowed their belief system to impose on their lives.

Read that again.  the limitations that they have allowed their belief system to impose on their lives.
Our beliefs either limit or unlimit us. How does this happen? Mostly, it occurs through subconscious agreement of limiting statements. We trust and believe the sincerity of the people that are speaking to us and we do not really think about what they are saying. A fact could be as simple as there are more homeless people out there  currently than at any other point in US history. The story that people make up about that fact is that it is difficult to get and maintain a home. The truth of the matter is easy or difficult is a value judgement that each person decides for themselves. But what they tell you is that you will have a hard time getting a home. And you believe them. So when the time comes you struggle to get a home. If there was no preconceived expectation, if there was no reason to believe that it would be difficult, then it might not turn out to be true for you. With no expectation there is unlimited possibility. It could be easy, somewhat challenging or very difficult. But once your mind latches on to the negative words of others that you trust, the only possibility becomes the harder path.

How can this be avoided? I mean people are always going to be giving their two cents. You can not feasibly just tell them all to shut up and stop ruining your life. What you can do though is to politely acknowledge their viewpoint but decide that their belief is not going to impose the same results on you. It is your life and you are the author, not them. Take what they are saying with a grain of salt. Yes, the housing market may be in turmoil but your credit score is say 750 or you have a great job or maybe you have or intend to devise a plan to prevent this from being an issue.

Bottom line, appreciate the sentiment. Don't buy into the bullshit. I say again, unlimit yourself