Gerald D'Cunha

“Hermits have no peer pressure.” -        Steven Wright A re  young ones influenced more by their peers than their parents? Peer pressure exists! Two nights ago, a mother of a 15-year-old girl, called me. The young one had just given her SSC Boards and now had a very long break before her (Almost four months). So, like many parents wish to do, this mother, too, wanted her young girl to do something productive during this long break. “Sir, I want her to do your PD programme,” she said, “Else, she will simply waste her days aimlessly.” I briefed the mother about the programme. The young girl’s very close friend had already joined our programme. “She listens to her friends more than she listens to her parents,” the mother said, “But, what I am worried about is this: she doesn’t take decisions based on her own aspirations; she does what her friends want her to do. If they join, she joins; if they drop...

A bout a month ago, a parent came to talk to me about his 15-year-old son. Boy’s name was Raju Mane*. The parent had shown up in his work-clothes… He worked under a civil contractor as a painter on daily wages… his clothes had patches of paint all over. He seemed very disturbed. His son, who studied in a local Marathi-medium school, had miserably failed in 9 th standard. On someone’s suggestion, the father had decided to make his son appear privately the tenth-standard exams. However, he was a worried man. “Sir, my son is an intelligent boy,” he said, “Wrong company has spoiled him.” A dear friend of mine, who taught high-school students, had suggested Raju’s father to see me. Obviously, my friend wanted me to help the young boy realize the root cause… help him improve his self-esteem… make him feel he was a good soul and had to discover himself… that, he could bounce back, if he took hold of himself… The boy seemed willing to come to me… So, I took him into...

This man just left my office, after enrolling his daughter in eleventh. “She is clear about what she wants to do in life and self-motivated, unlike her elder brother.” he told me while he was here. He added, with a visible pain, “He failed in TY three years ago and, now, loiters around with his useless friends.” T he quality of our lives is the quality of our choices… And, one of the most significant choices, we all make in our lives, is the company we choose to keep… Our friends, our peers… can make us or break us… There is no point blaming anyone… It doesn’t help. If friends influence the quality of our life, then, we all are equally responsible… For, we have chosen to be friends with each other… “Be careful about the company you keep,” I keep reminding my newly-inducted students; “if you move around with goal-less guys, you will, surely, become a goal-less guy, too. Similarly, if you move around with highly-motivated guys, their motivation will ...