Peer Pressure

As a teenager, I had to deal with peer pressure, almost everyday. Whether, it was smoking, staying out late, or simply dressing to impress for school in the morning. Peer pressure was always knocking at my door. Peer pressure was very difficult to get away from as a teenager. It's like the pressure to be accepted all started once I got to high school. That is why I could somewhat understand and relate to what H.D. in, "Dying to be Bigger" was going through as a teen dealing with the pressure to be accepted by his peers.

Smoking and staying out late were the major peer pressures I experienced as a young teen growing up. All the popular kids I knew were smoking and staying out late at night. Even though my mother lectured me on not smoking on many occasions, and gave me an eight o'clock curfew. I still found my self eager to disobey, wanting to follow the so called popular kids in order to "be down".

"Getting fly" in the mirror every morning wasn't as serious as smoking, or staying out late at night, but it was serious in the fact that I always felt pressured to make sure that my gear was "on point". Meaning, my sneakers had to match my shirt, my shirt had to match my hat, and the whole outfit had to be name brand from top to bottom. "Rejacks" was definitely a no no. The pressure was so great that, if I didn't have anything exclusive to put on, I would go as far as to second guess going to school that day. What a person wore to school was a big thing in high school, and most likely still is. It could either, "make you or brake you". I seriously felt like I had to put on some sort of fashion show for my peers to accept me. To this day, I still feel that very same pressure. It never seemed to go away.

I remember the first time I experimented with weed, like it was yesterday. I was only 14. I remember looking down at a rolled up blunt and being encouraged by my friend to take a hit off of it. I knew that smoking was not something I wanted to do at that time in my life, but I ended up doing it anyway. I easily gave into the pressure of what my friends would have thought if I didn't smoke that blunt. Sometimes I wish I hadn't given in to that peer pressure,