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Are you choosing your career due to peer pressure?

“Real friends are not to be comfortable with, but friends who force you to lever yourself up.”

The word friendship, what does it mean to you? For me, it’s my friends Priyanka and Shaurya. They both mean the kind that Lasts a Lifetime! But do I mean the same for them?

Those were our school days, when we met and became best friends. Popularly known as the ‘triplet’ we were thrown out of the class because of our naughty behavior. On contrary, our unremarkable intelligence was our power.

The childhood days came to an end when we entered our adulthood with the new spirit of exploring college life. Adulthood gave me the courage to take my decisions and plan my future. Somewhere, the craze of all night-outs, parties, fun trips, dinners I was influenced to choose what they were choosing. The first year of my college was an eye-opener for me because the friends were changing and their priorities also. The lunch breaks went traded from chilling together to smoking and drinking. The college culture forced Shaurya to smoke every day and to stop him even I was dragged to smoke and drink. It is a misconception of students that when we are rounded out from our teenage then smoking cigarettes means being cool. But Noo, it only means damaging your lungs and body. That was a point when I and Priyanka took a step back, from controlling Shaurya and the friendship was somewhere vanishing. I choose to quit smoking and drinking because I could see how Shaurya was unable to focus and how his life was falling apart due to lifestyle health issues. Sadly I couldn’t leave smoking completely.

The graduation was about to come to an end but Shaurya was not with us, it was a time for us to choose our college for further studies and our decision was always to pursue MBA.  But the astonishing fact was Priyanka choose to study something different, I was forced by Priyanka to choose M.Com over MBA, and she influenced me to opt for the same. I was very confused because I could not let her go away and be in a different college with different friends. I was a victim of peer pressure. I regret my decision of choosing M.Com and choosing my friend over my prestigious career.

During master's, I was not able to put my mind and heart as commerce was never my cup of tea, as my consistent low grades were pulling me back in academic score. The last phase showed me what I gained and what I lost! I was the most unfortunate person who lost both career and friendship. Priyanka was placed in a reputed company with a good package and I was struggling in finding a job.

Friendship means believing the best in you at all times, but after losing my friends due to my own decisions of not saying NO, the realization hit me and forced me to take a step for myself. I decided to pursue my career choice which was MBA, and gave my best in it. There I go, after completing MBA, I had a satisfying job. Well I know, my 2 years were wasted but everything leaves us with learning. I learned to say NO when it should be NO.

Years later, our reunion happened which showed, we all were the same and happy, but with our own learnings. Shaurya was an entrepreneur but had his lifestyle health problems due to excessive smoking, Priyanka was a senior commerce trainer but she missed being in a management role and here I was a happy soul with a happy job but with a grudge of losing my 2 years. We all were very happy being together, but somewhere everyone’s decision impacted their lives.

Friends are the one who cultivates a relationship and loves the imperfect you. Don’t let any friends force you for wrongdoings, even the habit of smoking cigarettes or bunking college. Friends are meant to support you for the right doing and being there for you when you need them. Never let peer pressure change the course of your life.