Peer pressure! Yay! The term that the education system engraves into your head, beating us senseless about how we shouldn't listen to the peers who want to watch the world burn. People who offer you bad things are bad people, and you should avoid them at all costs. Say no to the drugs and the alcohol, and you'll live a prosperous life!
No matter how much the adults say it's easy to refuse the drugs, the people, the alcohol, let me give you an easy answer.
No.
It's not easy.
Nothing is ever that easy.
No matter how many presentations, lectures, or childish sing-alongs you make us endure, you're only right about one thing. We're young. We're developing. If there's one thing you aren't giving us, it's the proper attention, the proper lessons, the proper respect we want. So where else do we get that?
We get it from the other people around us. That's where peer pressure decides to descend upon our societies like a demented curse and it starts to twist and mold our fragile minds into whatever it wants. We want a voice, validation, or for goodness sake, just a little bit of respect. In a world where we are born encased in a place where we become desensitized to violence, blood, or drugs, how could you possibly say that it's so easy to just say no?
So when that kid from school comes over, with those broken, hurt, dead eyes and says he has nothing left to live for, and he hands you an invitation to a party where you know people are going to be doing "bad" things, you realize you and him have more in common than you thought.
They say peer pressure will influence you to do bad things. I say peer pressure is the result of bad things that have already passed. Generation Z is growing up in a world where climate change could end our lives before we even reach 40 years of age, where school shootings online are nothing but a norm, and when it's common to hear someone cry out that they'd rather be happy for one night than live the next ten years knowing they were "too young" to make a difference.
We're addicted to the respect, we're addicted to the attention, we're addicted to the voice we temporarily hold. Your society, the one that you have left in ruins for us, it only promotes people to give in to those who have already given up. We as a generation have given up trying to change the rules because the current generation can't realize what they're doing and we're not old enough to change anything.
Peer pressure is just giving in. Succumbing to the others in our generation who have grown sick and tired of the system, joining the growing ranks of people who play the game as it's written. You see, it's a domino effect. One generation passes its problems onto another, which sees it and immediately gives in to the older one's sickening, poisoning words of half-truth and passes it onto the next.
It's not too late, you know. Sure, it's really late. The best time to change our course should've been about twenty years ago, but the second-best time, and possible only time, is right now. If we are truly the future, then we can't accept the fact that others are giving up. Peer pressure is a major issue, and it's really difficult to just say no and stay strong. It's so much easier to just give up as well, submit yourself to a couple of years worth of 'fun with your friends' and never face reality. Instead of saying no to the people, say no to the reasons. There's a future, and it's yours. Fight for the world you know you're going to have to inherit one day, and don't listen to the people who have already given up on it.
Don't tell yourself that our children will be able to patch the holes of this crippling society. Why do you think we're here now?
It's our generation's game now, and we don't play by the current rules.
Truly yours,
MinorlyConcerned
YOU ARE READING
Minor Concerns
Non-FictionJust a couple of minor concerns discussed by a couple of minors with concerns, adding in some minorly concerning issues, and also concerningly aware minors. (Cover is original- Made by Sonny Appleseed)
