BESTSELF™ ICEBREAKER | Life Lessons 04
HOW HAS PEER PRESSURE SHAPED YOUR LIFE?
The only time I felt peer pressure was when I was young. I always hung around an "older" crowd, they were all at least 2 - 3 years older than me. A lot of that was due to my height - I was always tall and hung out with older kids to feel like I "fit in". I'm also an eldest and in a lot of ways was expected to act my height if not my age, I grew up far earlier than I ever should have had to and missed a few steps along the way. (I didn't know that until I raised my own children, my life was normal until I realized I did not live a normal life.) In a desperate effort to stunt my growth, I was smoking at 10 years of age and drinking coffee at 11. I lost my virginity at 14 to rid myself of the stigma and quickly learned that I was then considered to be a slut. Peers teach you tough lessons.
Most of my adult years were spent in an affluent suburb surrounded by tremendously competitive people - there was a reason they could afford to live there comfortably, and sometimes in outrageous comfort. My peers were the mums in the playgroups that were put together for the kids when really it was for the mums. Then there were the pre-school parents, the sport parents, the choir parents, the playground parents, the club members, the private high school parents, the neighbours, all of whom I knew but I didn't really want to know most of them well. They were more often than not mean-spirited, insecure, petty, boastful and generally boring.
With rare exception, I never felt the need to fit in with any of them, my people found me along the way because I am none of those things and became more me, comfortable in my own skin, as the years went by. I'm proof that you don't want to peak in high school and it's perfectly okay to make most of your close, bury-the-body friends after the age of 40.
Now that I'm moving into my late-50s and into a new phase of life in a new town, I will continue to be friends with all of my people, they were curated with great care and I'm so grateful to be a part of their lives. I will continue to be open to welcome my new people when they find me.