by - Burhan Sandhu (Brooklyn)

Peer pressure is a major issue in today’s teenage world.  Along with drugs, alcohol, and other negative influences in the teenage years, peer pressure is also a problem that a teenager will have to face sooner or later.  All teenagers struggle with peer pressure, and I, after straining to figure out a solution, have developed methods to deal with it.

Peer pressure is when your peers, or those that are around your age, pressure you into doing something because they want you to do it.  This can be healthy if it’s joining a certain sport, becoming part of a study group, or doing something productive.  However, most of the time, peer pressure results in people around you telling you to do something like drink beer or smoke a cigarette.  No matter how hard a teen may try, peer pressure will always present itself in one form or another.  Because of the negative results of peer pressure, it is important to find ways to guard oneself from its evils.

As an Ahmadi Muslim, I find that peer pressure is usually the temptation to transgress from the path of righteousness.  There are some things, like drinking, that are flat out sins in our religion.  These things often cloud the path of righteousness, the path that we are obligated to find and follow.  If the religious consequences are not enough, the temptations of peer pressure also come with their worldly disadvantages.  In the case of drinking, there are many laws regarding underage drinking and DWI on top of the immediate harm drinking has on the brain and various organs in the body.  In general, it is far better to deal with peer pressure rather than to “go with the flow” and give in to the temptations of peer pressure.

For me, peer pressure really began in the fifth grade.  Other 10-year olds around me were rapidly changing in their thinking and actions.  I did not know then what peer pressure was or that I was being introduced to it.  However, little things around me were going on everyday that were trying to make me a follower of the uniform life of peer pressure.  At that time, I didn’t care what others told me to do and did what I wanted.  It wasn’t until the sixth grade when I actually had to decide how I would deal with peer pressure.  When my friends told me to do things like pulling pranks on the teacher or wearing a certain type of clothing, I did some thinking.  I simply refused to do some of the things my friends proposed to do because I was brought up with the mindset that those things are just taboo in Islam.

What religion didn’t forbid me to do, that was where I really had to deal with peer pressure.  After thinking about those things for a while, I was left with two prominent influences that guided my course of actions when I was dealing with peer pressure.  The first was that peer pressure seemed to draw me further and further away from the culture my Pakistani heritage had left for me.  While this varies between individuals, I always refuse to let go of my culture.  I am afraid that the loss of my culture will be the loss of my character, and I will never be able to differentiate myself from others.

This leads to the second influence, which is that peer pressure leads away from leadership.  Peer pressure calls for one to follow others, and my aim in life is to be followed rather than to have followed.  Accomplishment won’t be realized if one lives by peer pressure, and this lack is one of my greatest fears in life.  These driving influences have become my method of dealing with peer pressure.

With culture, religion, and leadership being the foremost components of my thinking, I make a firm stand when I deal with peer pressure.  The question that keeps me on the right path is that if man cannot lead his own life, why should he lead others’?  As a Muslim, as an Ahmadi, and as a growing teenager, I find that peer pressure is not the answer.