Without a doubt the main question that I get asked about is if I have any advice on how to follow the diet and lifestyle that I recommend in this book in social situations and how to deal with family, friends, co-workers, and other people who simply don't understand, so I feel that it would be a good idea to devote a chapter to talking about peer pressure and how to become immune to it.
Understand that if you are too afraid to follow your heart and do what you want out of fear of what others will think of you those people own you, and I personally would rather be disowned by my family, friends, and society than to be owned by them and have to spend the rest of my life trying to gain their acceptance by doing things that I don't fell is right or that I don't feel excited about and below are 6 forms of peer pressure that I see people having difficulty with and some tips on how to over come them...
1. PEER PRESSURE TO HAVE MULTIPLE PERSONALITIES
Some people end up going through life with "Multiple Personalities" and will behave very differently around different people. An example of this would be a man who has a very "G Rated" personality, vocabulary, and sense of humor when he is at home with his wife and children but when he goes to work and is with his co-workers virtually everything that he says and does would be completely unacceptable behavior when he is at home. The 2 personalities that he displays are so different that it makes you wonder which personality is the real one, or if he even has a real one (If he suddenly switched his rolls and behaved the way that he does at home when he is at work with his co-workers would probably make fun of him and if he were to start behaving the way he does at work when he is at home his wife would probably kick him out of the house.) He behaves the way that he feels will make him accepted and he has no genuine personality that he could comfortably use in any situation.
What's so ironic about the wanting to fit-in and be accepted is that if you are your own person and you don't try to be like anyone else people will see you as original and will find you more interesting (and even more attractive) than the average person, and the more you try to fit in and make people like you the more they will start to view you as weak and easy to control and the less they will respect you.
Make it a point to catch yourself for now on whenever you suddenly feel the need to talk or act differently simply because of who just walked in the room and try being yourself regardless of who you are around. Once you do this you can start to find your true personality and strengthen it. Also practice 100% honesty because being secretive requires story telling and develops a fake personality.
2. PEER PRESSURE TO TRY CIGARETTES, ALCOHOL, AND DRUGS
The average child is warned over 10,000 times about the dangers of cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs, but due to peer pressure few kids make it all the way to adulthood without experimenting with them anyways. The first time they try these things their bodies will immediately reject them through vomiting, coughing, and sickness to let them know that it simply can't handle what was just consumed and it is doing everything that it can to say, "Don't do this to me!!!", but because of peer pressure they decide to try these things again, and again, and again, until they eventually build up a tolerance (As well as an addiction) to them.
Someone once told me when I was very young that, "Your body is the only physical possession that you are guaranteed to have for your entire lifetime, so take good care of it." That saying has always stuck with me and it's the reason that I have never smoked a cigarette, drank alcohol, did any illegal drugs, or even drank coffee before, and why I have absolutely no desire to ever try any of these things. (I was also fortunate enough when I was younger to have met a lot of adults who's main goal in life was simply to stop smoking or stop drinking.)
It's ironic when I hear people say that the reason they smoke, drink, or do drugs is because their parents did it when they were growing up or because their close friends were all doing it, because I have also met a lot of people who say that the reason they DIDN'T start smoking, drinking, or doing drugs is because their parents did it when they were growing up or because they had a lot of close friends who were doing it. You can try to blame other people for your choices in life or you can accept responsibility for your choices and learn other's mistakes.
Nobody that cares about their body and wants to live a long and healthy life would purposely fill their body with massive amounts of toxins in an attempt to become "Intoxicated", "Stoned", or "Wasted".
3. PEER PRESSURE TO PLAN YOUR FUTURE WHILE YOU'RE STILL YOUNG
In our society it is often assumed that if a person doesn't know what they want to do with their life by the time they are 18 they won't go very far in life compared to those who do, and because of this people often feel pressured to make the biggest and most important decisions that they will ever make in their life when they are still very young and without spending the time to throughly think them through (As if they are teenage psychics.) and because of this many adults are now slaves to the decisions that they felt pressured to make while they were in their youth.
People as young as 18 are getting married and vowing that they will still have the same feelings for each other that they do now for the rest of eternity. (Regardless of what happens in their 20's, 30's, 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's, 100's, and forever more.)
A lot of young people I know are married, own a home, have a career, and are already planning for their retirement and even their own funeral. Indeed, they seem to have their entire future mapped out and have settled down into their own comfortable and predictable groove... I on the other hand don't know. I seem to be drifting randomly through life, doing only what feels right to me moment by moment. I openly admit that I don't know my own future much less anyone else's for that matter, so I don't make promises and I have no real long term plans or goals, and because I haven't already planned my future, my future possibilities are truly endless!
4. PEER PRESSURE TO GET MARRIED AND WHO TO MARRY A CERTAIN PERSON
In some foreign countries the parents chose who their children marry for them at a very young age, and although that may seem wrong to people living in a free country like America, I've met many people in America who are married and who have admitted to me that the only reason they got married was because they were afraid of how their parents would react if they were living together or had children together and weren't married first, or that they are unhappy, but stay married only because getting a divorce would upset their parents, and I've also met people who were too afraid to even date someone simply because they were a different race, age, or religion and they were afraid that their parents would basically disown them if they even found out about it. Couples like this who willingly allow their parents to dictate their marriages are no better off than couples in foreign countries where it's customary for the parents to decide who their child marries.
If marriage didn't exist in the past and it was a completely brand new concept I think that most people would think that the idea of couples paying to have a ceremony to symbolize their love was nothing more than another way that businesses have figured out a way to charge people money for one of life's most basic experiences.
5. PEER PRESSURE TO FOLLOW TRADITIONS AND ATTEND SOCIAL EVENTS
When people open up their mailbox and find an invitation to go to a family member's wedding, graduation, baby shower, or any other ceremony, these "Invitations" are actually "Obligations", for many people, because they would be too scared to afraid to simply say, "No thank you" no matter how much they wish they could. I look at invitations like these as "Spam" and ignore them unless I genuinely have a strong desire to go which almost never happens.
A big problem that I see with getting together with friends and family is that very few people actually want to spend real time together. Sitting in a quiet room and talking face to face is too uncomfortable for a lot of people so when they spend time together it has to be at a restaurant, a movie theater, or somewhere else where there are a lot of distractions going on and there is no chance of actually having to talk in silence and look each other in the eyes.
It used to bother me in the past when I would go to family reunions and even if we hadn't seen each other in years after only 30 minutes or so of actually talking someone would say, "Hey, let's turn on the TV." and once the TV was on there was of course no need to talk or even look at each other any more. Now-a-days my family knows that if they want to see me they have to come to my house where there is no TV or any other distractions.
One of the main forms of distractions that people seem to need in order to feel comfortable around their relatives is unhealthy foods and alcohol. It has been said by many that the hardest part about living this lifestyle that I recommend in this book is to watch your friends and family slowly kill themselves with their unhealthy lifestyles. If you do go to family reunions and you care about your family I would encourage you to spend some time and money on getting some really beautiful and good tasting raw vegan foods with you. (Something as simple as a big bowl of colorful or exotic fruit is often enough to catch people's eyes and make them realize that a raw vegan diet isn't limited to carrots and broccoli.)
Holidays are also pushed on everyone and although some of the holidays originally started off as very well meaning concepts, over the years they have almost all evolved into nothing more than a time when everyone is strongly pressured into overeating and overspending, and a few of the holidays have degenerated into nothing more than a time when everyone is encouraged to get drunk...
If you don't think that holidays can be destructive consider the following...
- There are more heart attacks on Thanksgiving than any other day of the year. - There are more drunk driving fatalities on New Years day than any other day of the year. - There are more cases of depression during the Holiday Season than at any other time of the year.
Maybe some name changes are in order for these holidays...
- Maybe "Thanksgiving" should be renamed "National Heart Attack Day". - Maybe "New Years Day" should be renamed "National Drunk Driving Day". - Maybe "The Holiday Season" should be renamed "The Season of Despair".
A holiday is in reality just another day, yet we are pressured to follow traditions and do what everyone else is doing on these days. Personally, I am much happier without holidays in my life. As a "minimalist" I am very happy that I won't be buying or receiving gifts on holidays, and as a "vegan" I am happy that I won't be gorging myself on meat on or alcohol on holidays, and as an "individual" I am happy in knowing that "traditions" aren't "laws" to me.
If you asked 100 children right before their first day of kindergarten what they want to be when they grow up you would probably get a lot of answers such as, "An astronaut", "The President", or even "A Super Hero", but if you asked those same kids the day they graduated High School what they want to do with their life it would be very unlikely that many of them would still believe that they could do what they once dreamed of doing back when they were preschoolers and many of them would probably say that they don't know what they want to do with their life... They just spent 13 years in school (which is supposed to prepare children for their future) but now they have a lot less confidence in themselves than they did before they went to school in the first place, and this is because during those 13 years of school they were taught a lot of limiting beliefs about themselves and the world.
Up until around age 5 a child's mind is like a sponge and they will absorb any new and interesting information that they are exposed to and they will literally ask hundreds of questions a day because of how interested they are about the world around them, but then when they are about 5 years old they are suddenly forced to go to school where they are forced to learn a select group of subjects whether they are interested in learning about them or not and once this happens their love for learning quickly fades and for many children "learning" becomes something that they hate.
Trying to force children to learn is like trying to force someone to love you. It doesn't work. Even if a child gets straight A's at school so what? That is no great accomplishment compared to the amazing ability for learning that they had before they started being forced to go to school and there's no telling how far they could have gone if they had simply been given the chance to learn and explore naturally without all of the rules and restrictions that they had to obey in school.
30 year school teacher John Gatto referred to school as a 12 year jail sentence for children. (People that rob banks often spend less than 12 years in jail.) Not only can public schooling weaken children mentally but it can also stunt their physical growth as well in my opinion. Children need far more sleep than adults do. Their bodies are growing rapidly and they need at least 12 hours of sleep per day, but having to wake up early for school each morning combined with homework and after-school activities and not being allowed to go to sleep while at school if they feel sleepy makes young children just as sleep deprived and caffeine dependant as adults and is criminal in my opinion. Children need to spend 12 hours a day sleeping and the other 12 hours daydreaming and depriving them of this is harmful.
School 2 - College
Isn't it ironic that the whole time you're in grades 1 - 12 you are told that you better not quit school because if you don't get your High School diploma you will be lucky if you can find a "real job" and then once you get your diploma you are told that it is basically worthless and that you had better go to college because if you don't go to college you will be lucky to find a "real job". As long as you find something that you enjoy doing and are passionate about you can find a way to make a living from it regardless of whether you went to school or not.
College can of course be beneficial to those who are genuinely there because they want to be there, but a lot of people go because their parents started saving up for their children's college education long before they had even expressed any interest in going and now they feel obligated to go because of how much their parents sacrificed for them.
If nothing else I would encourage you to at least wait to go to college until you feel ready for it. There is no harm in taking some time off between High School and College to figure out what you want to do on your own without parents and teachers trying to supervise your decision.
School 3 - Church
Sunday School (church) can also have serious negative consequences on children who are forced to go. The age old questions such as "Where did we come from?" , "What happens when we die?" , and "Is there life elsewhere in the Universe?" are age old questions that everyone seeks answers to (and gets inspiration from) and churches actually claim to have the answers to these big questions, yet if given the choice between going to church and learning their answers to these big questions or staying home and watching cartoons most children would choose to stay home and watch cartoons every time because the answers given at Church aren't satisfactory, and if forced to go to church they will ultimately stop seeking answers to these life questions either because the answers that science discovers goes against what they were taught in church or because they now view these questions as "religious questions" and no longer want anything to do with religion.
If you are a young child who is being forced to go to your parent's church on Sundays when you don't want to because you don't feel any kind of spirit while you're there or because you simply don't believe in the teachings I would strongly encourage you to speak up about it. If the church that you are being forced to go to teaches in any way that certain people are more important than others (or if the church used to be prejudice towards people of different races or sexual orientations until very recently when they realized that times are changing and if they don't change their teachings they will be looked at as a "Hate Group") point out the contradictions in the teachings that you learn at church and the teachings that your parents have taught you.
Although your brain only weighs 2 or 3 pounds you could spend 100 years reading encyclopedias and still not run out of storage space in your brain for new information, but you can certainly make yourself "close minded" and refuse to take in any new information that goes against your religious beliefs.
School 4 - Home Schooling
Reading is what I encourage most. If you are reading 1 book per week you can easily learn more useful information in 1 year than in all of the 12 years of schooling combined. No matter what subjects you are interested in there are books out there about it. (If for example you are interested in thy pyramids you can find books that were written by people who spent 30 years or more studying the pyramids and who took all of those years of research and condensed it into a book that you can casually read in a week.) Regardless of what you are interested in, if you are reading a book a week on that subject it won't be long before you are a legitimate expert on that subject!
Books are life changing tools! There are a lot of people out there who were sent to prison for some of the worst crimes imaginable and who were deemed by society to be too dangerous, evil, or corrupt to be part of society, but they left prison a good, honest, and spiritual person simply because when they were in prison they happened to read a really good book that was able to reach them in a way that their friends, family, and society were all unable to.
It's no coincidence that Adolf Hitler and other dictators in the past demanded that certain books be burned or banned from the public. They did this because they realized that their ability to control the masses depended on keeping the masses ignorant of certain things. (Especially the truth about human potential.)
The idea that children need to go to school in order to learn how to read and write is absurd and statistics show that the majority of people don't read books after they are finished with school. This is because all reading done in school is required reading which makes children despise reading... (As the childhood rhyme about the end of school goes, "No more pencils, no more books, no more teacher's dirty looks.")