Appendix B- Dealing with Social Pressure
Note: Click here (insert link here) to download Appendix A.
Social pressure is a great challenge. It can cause us to do things we didn’t want to do and stop us from following our dreams. We must learn how to manage it so it doesn’t get in our way.
In the battle against desire, social pressure rears its ugly head in many ways. We might be tempted to engage in forbidden activities because others are doing so, or we might follow the crowd to avoid friction. And even if we are strong enough to hold back from overt sins, we might at least forgo our usual safeguards to avoid being an outcast.
But the most common desire-related nisyonos caused by social pressure involve inappropriate conversations. They come up often, and winning takes great strength. Because we care about what others will think about us, it’s hard to stay out of them.
This challenge can take on many forms. If our friends make lustful comments or jokes when we are around, it is hard to change the topic or to leave. There will be times when we hear things that are hilarious but inappropriate, and we will be tempted to repeat them to others. And if we suddenly stop talking about these matters with our friends, we might be accused of “becoming too religious.”
In addition, just seeing people we identify with doing something makes us more likely to act that way. If our friends speak freely about inappropriate matters, we might do the same, even when we’re not pressured to.
Social pressure is a real force built on deep needs within a person. Overcoming it is tricky. It’s so hard to say no when social pressure makes us want to give in.
Though some people are not fazed by what others think about them, most people care a lot about it. It is very important to many people, especially in our times. Though some people have attained enough perspective to realize that other people’s opinions don’t matter, this idea doesn’t help those who do care what others think about them. Using logic to show that what people think doesn’t matter, saying that everybody is too focused on themselves to be thinking about the person, or lecturing to “just get over it” because “you shouldn’t care what others say” is usually counterproductive. The person just feels worse about himself for caring about what he shouldn’t, and thinking badly of oneself causes a person to be even more self-conscious. And at best, these statements are only mildly helpful. A self-conscious person has a real, unsatisfied emotional need for other people’s approval. For such a person, it is so frustrating to be told to just not care when he just does care. He is left feeling misunderstood, or worse, that there is something wrong with him.
This preaching-from-above method is not built on much substance. Most people naturally care a lot about how others perceive them. Just because it’s not entirely logical, that doesn’t mean something is wrong with them. Most drives are not built on logic, yet we have them. If we were purely logical, we would always act like angels. Rather, Hashem gave us these drives and we must deal with them in the proper way, which often is not intuitive.
If we care about what others think about us, that’s normal. Our job is to work with it and not let it interfere with our lives, rather than denying that we care or trying to force ourselves not to. Those actions make the problem worse. We must be empathetic with ourselves, admit that Hashem gave us this drive to add another layer of challenge to many of our tests, and address it properly in an emotionally satisfying way.