It is probably the most viable force that has birthed and equally snuffed out the most beautiful of dreams. Pressure is one that is known to induce stress and wring out of individuals in certain situations the solutions to life’s biggest problems either negatively or positively.
As much as pressure is a great catalyst in making everything move, very literally, it is also the major catalyst that pushes people to move, only to get stuck or to move to a very bad place; a typical and very common example, being what we know as “peer pressure”. Yup, that, sometimes, silly urge to do something just because you really want to be identified with a certain group or class of individuals, even when you don’t necessarily care for that thing you feel you have to do. Don’t shake your head; we know that we all have been caught up in that situation at least once or twice in our lifetime and have given in to it at least one time out of the two. The consequences of being swayed by the masses have been rewarding or regretful, depending on what it was we were pressured to do.
Truth be told, we only get lucky to escape tragic endings when we join the crowd just for the sake of it rather than in view of what our values are. That is to say that the determinant of how pressure works for us in this little time we have to live on earth, either positively or negatively is what we stand for as individuals.
A lot of people have different values based on:
- Their environment; where they grew up and what values are upheld there.
- Their faith or religious beliefs; if I’m a Christian (which I am), my values will be greatly influenced by the values being upheld in the Christian faith.
- Their family; depending on the type of family an individual belongs to, his or her methods will, both consciously and unconsciously be modeled after how they were raised.
- Their society/ethnicity/culture; every individual is, no matter how subtle, affected by the society/ethnicity/ culture he or she has identified with, either willingly or unwillingly and it will affect the values they will eventually imbibe and practice.
Each and every one of us takes these molding factors, merges and modifies them into the pillars of our person that constitute what we call values. As we grow older in age and experience, we weigh a lot our life decisions on these values and that is what plays a great role in deciding whether pressure works for or against us. This certainly does not mean that we would never encounter crossroads where we are indecisive of which road to take as we move through this life but once we have identified what we stand for and what we won’t fall for, we would eventually make the right decisions in every pressurizing situation we find ourselves faced with.
In conclusion, I maintain that pressure is a much needed force in the universe; it gets to squeeze people who would otherwise sit back and watch the world around them pass by rather than jump in and make a difference in it, to do just that. It will jerk us into thinking about and deciding who we are, what we stand for and if those values will be instrumental enough to take us to where we want to be in the long-run. So find solid values, build your life on them and let pressure mold you into the man/woman of your dreams!
By: Myiriah Prudence Kogi
Naionality Nigeria; Age 22
