Peer influence

I bet you must have wondered once in your life that why is your behavior and attitude is changing time to time or as you grow up? Or why do your parents ask you time to time to improve your attitude which obviously makes you or anyone angry and frustrated and out of frustration you ask yourself why is that I am changing in such a way that it is getting out my control.

Similarly when you turn from a bad human being to a good human being and wonder how did the sudden change accrued or when your parents or teachers ask you how did you change so suddenly and started doing your home work and act respectfully.

And the most obvious one of them all you must have definitely asked this question that why do my teachers, parents and even all elders continuously ask me to roam around with good people who are obedient and respectful and with all those good qualities and are respected in the society and why do they ask me to stay away from the mischievous group of people?

The answers to all these questions are pretty easy. It is PEER INFLUENCE. When you spend time with certain kinds of people you adopt their behavior without even realizing it. It can be in a positive or in a negative way. You see people are influenced by peers because they want to fit in, be like peers they admire, do what others are doing, or have what others have. Friends, classmates, workers, or even family etc. are all examples of peers. How do peer influence change your behavior? Well when you spend certain amount of time studying, working, playing etc. you will adopt their behavior and convert it in your habits. This can go either way with good peer influencers you may friends you bound to become successful and become a better human being were as with bad peer influencers you are bound to doom and destroy your life.

After reading all the content I have written so far you must have asked yourself how to differentiate between good or bad peer influencers? Well for me it was the voice of my heart which I always listen to and will continue to do so. When you look at a person doing something like helping a person for example helping a old lady cross the road you will automatically feel happy and after being influenced by the person doing so at that moment a voice would come from your heart to interact with that person that voice is the voice of the heart you should hear and similarly when see someone smoking or bullying you will again hear a voice which will tell you to stop him or her and later stay away from those group of people. This is how you differentiate between bad or good peer influencers.

You should be very careful in choosing your peers as they are the ones who shape or break your life. These peers are once who will help in in worst situations or run away from it. For some famous examples you must have heard the name of a famous rapper called Lil Uzi. When Lil Uzi was a kid living with a gang selling drugs he was shock to see that when he was shot by a stranger trying to rob and police came at that moment to help him his "so called peers" started to run with cocaine over his body misunderstanding that cops were there to arrest them instead of trying to save Lil Uzi's life at that moment cop shouted them to stop and told that they rushed there after listening to the gunfire. That day Lil Uzi understood the true meaning of peer influence.

A good peer will help you in desperate if not worst situations for example one of current famous boxer and heavy weight champion Tyson fury would have not been so successful if he would have decided to take his life as 20 year old youngster. 

At that point of his life Tyson was depressed and had given up hope in life and at that moment he was helped by Deontay Wilder to rise up and not give hope on living, he influenced Tyson to not suicide and continue to live and become a boxer. This is a real life example of good peer influencer.

I would like to conclude by saying that no matter how bad of a situation you are in there is always someone out there waiting for you, wanting to help you and support you. You just need to find that person and make him your true peer.

~ KRISH RAWAT