I can’t be the only person out there who has tried to do something, or like something because they think it’s the right thing to do.  This is a subtle, more insiduous form of peer pressure since no one’s in my face telling me that if I want to be cool, if I want to be one of ‘them’, I must do this. In this instance of peer pressure my ‘peer’ is as close to me as it can get:  it’s myself.

There is one thing in my life right now that falls under the category of something I’m peer pressuring myself to do because I think it’s the best thing for me to do, and there are many advantages (unseen, thus far) to it.  But every time I try, the pain of the resulting backhand slap almost knocks me to my knees.  I want to just say “screw it” and give up entirely.  But then there’s that good old Nigerian stubbornness/pride (or perhaps this is just a familial trait) that forces me to get back up in the boxing ring.

I don’t know if I want to do it anymore.  Maybe the wishy washy platitude is true:  it’s just not meant to be.

Update:  Interesting, Nelly Furtado’s song Try is in my head.  How apropos:

All I know
Is everything is not as it’s sold
but the more I grow the less I know
And I have lived so many lives
Though I’m not old
And the more I see, the less I grow
The fewer the seeds the more I sow

Then I see you standing there
Wanting more from me
And all I can do is try
Then I see you standing there
Wanting more from me
And all I can do is try

I wish I hadn’t seen all of the realness
And all the real people are really not real at all
The more I learn the more I cry
As I say goodbye to the way of life
I thought I had designed for me

Then I see you standing there
Wanting more from me
And all I can do is try
Then I see you standing there
I’m all I’ll ever be
But all I can do is try
Try

All of the moments that already passed
We’ll try to go back and make them last
All of the things we want each other to be
We never will be
And that’s wonderful, and that’s life
And that’s you, baby
This is me, baby
And we are, we are, we are, we are
Free
In our love
We are free in our love

Filed under: Introspective by jummy