PEER INFLUENCE; WHY PEERS CAN MAKE GOOD ROLE MODELS TOO

 When you ask around among most young people, their role models are mostly filthy rich celebrities especially musicians, some will say influential people like Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr. Mother Teresa etc. only a few like I will mention family members and some friends. But over the course of my social life, I have realized that indeed peers can also make good role models. I know in the past peer influence has been linked to inappropriate behavior such as doing drugs, truancy, and much other bad stuff but it’s high time we started looking for role models in our immediate environment. Am not insinuating that your celebrity or influential leader you have for a role model is not good enough. No. In fact, they are the best. My argument is, having someone you interact with daily, someone you know their struggle and live in it too for a role model can be more motivating than someone who probably grew up in a very different environment and times.

Very few people out there can admit that their childhood friends were once their role models simply because their friends did not own cars or live in huge mansions back then. Take me for example. From pre-primary up to around class six currently known as the sixth grade I was a thick as a plank. Yeah, it hurts my feelings too but I said it out loud. My grandmother had to read my name on the mark sheet from the bottom or else she could just waste her time starting from the top. Under the same conditions, eating the same food, undergoing the same struggle my sister was bringing home gifts as a matter of fact I used to write in her books, eat from her plates and take shower in basins she usually brought home as prizes every time school was closed. So how did peer influence turn my academic boat around?

In the seventh grade, my best friend for those who know him; Baxton transferred to our school. We became friends automatically. We came from the same village, our fathers were friends and we shared the same nickname so we really didn’t have an option there. The guy was number one in the first exam he sat for. Amazing right? Definitely. You can imagine being friends with the best student in your class and you’re what number...I remember I rarely used to beat the last date on the calendar. That was my turning point. He was among the most popular kids in school, respected and admired. Honestly, I wanted that too. So instead of being consumed by resentment, I started aiming for what he had. You know the fame and an opportunity to be heard during arguments and to some extent girls buzzing around you like flies. I learned from him. I read the books he read to the extreme I even copied how he dressed though I might say it didn’t end well for me after cutting my brand new Christmas only jeans into a three-quarter trouser yet the good side of the peer influence paid off. My grades started improving and by the time we graduated from primary school I was among the best ten pupils.

We should start learning from our peers, the people with whom we closely share our adversities and good times but they are performing better than us not only in academics but also in other walks of life. These people who we’ve experienced and seen their vicissitudes of life give us hope to thrive in the same conditions therefore peer influence or peer pressure as we love to call it can be both good and bad at the same time. The former and the latter depend on what we choose to focus on because at the end of the day we will all be accountable for our choices. 

let me finish with noting that our success is not tied to that of our role models and we should be ashamed of having unsuccessful role models because all they offer is hope for a better tomorrow the rest entirely depends on us. let me know who is your role model in the comment section.