Greatness, Evoked by Peer Pressure

Upon arriving at the tennis courts, we unloaded our overstuffed tennis bags onto the shriveled grass, and applied thick layers of sunscreen to our already tanned skin. It was only 10:30, and the sun was already blazing. We fished our hands into the grocery baskets of tennis balls, which had quickly aged from our daily usage. There were sixteen of us, and eight courts. Quickly, we sorted ourselves into pairs and jogged to the unoccupied courts. From the moment I stepped onto the deep blue tennis court, I knew that today was going to be an incredible day of tennis. There was a silence cast upon the courts, and the only audible sounds were the squeaking of shoes with flattened treads, and fuzzy balls being murdered by sixteen ruthless racquets. Sweat doused the guys' t-shirts and soaked the girl's ponytails. Lips were pursed in concentration, as arms lashed around bodies, and legs shuffled and sprinted across the court. The synergy was electric. Tennis is such an individual sport, and strangely, for once we were acting as a team. Sixteen teenagers, concentrating on accomplishing a common goal: to rise above the rest, and become the best. Even as we were ravaged by the merciless mid-summer heat, nobody ceased play for a gulp of frosty water, though we all wanted to. Our coaches were flabbergasted. They watched us with wide eyes and open mouths. We had never before been so focused as a group, and the coaches watched in awe, reconsidering their former assumptions of what we were capable. 


Parents often warn their children of the consequences of peer pressure they always ask the question: If your friends decided to leap off a bridge, would you jump too? We children roll our eyes and mutter the obvious, "Of course I wouldn't." as teenagers, we are constantly being judged by our peers. If one person falls below the rest, by neglecting to put forth effort in sports or ignoring their geometry homework, then the rest look down upon them, resulting in the person getting pulled back into the herd. However, when many people begin living below the standard, then the standard itself starts to sink. On the flip side, when one person rises above the rest by preparing for the SAT when they are only in middle school, or running the extra mile when everybody else has gone home to sleep, the herd envies the person's success and gossips behind their back. My point is that the majority of people are magnetic, pulling the outsiders in, whether they are falling short of the standard, or breaking away from it. If every ody would elevate their personal standards, like I was lucky enough to witness on that scorching day upon the tennis courts, then a new genre of peer pressure would be created. It would be called, "Greatness, Evoked by Peer Pressure"