This is an excerpt from my latest book, Who Are You? Laying the Foundations for Personal Growth and Development and considers the influence of friends on your development….

“From the Fixed part of ourselves, we get those things that are like time-release capsules, they are in us all, waiting to be activated. 

One of the superstars of our identity gathering process is puberty. Children don’t know what’s about to hit them; adults look back and the very thought of puberty makes them wince. Unless you are a hermit, there are always Peer Groups. Groups of fellow professionals, people with common interests or activities who represent peer groups; we are going to consider the onset of puberty and the supercharged potency that the young adult or adolescent Peer Group takes on.

In this commentary, we will not take one special friend but will explore the collective group of friends. Here they will be referred to as the Peer Group. It is that gathering of adolescents that draw comfort from the mutuality they are forging as they alone tackle life’s dilemmas, propositions and the who spectrum of colours that emerge over the horizon of young adulthood.

Around this time the emphasis upon where we are based, our centre of gravity, shifts significantly. The place of the family is usurped by that infinitely more glamorous and omnipotent collective who are the Peer Group. Your family have provided you with a foundation and now it’s time to experiment. To take the vehicle that you built out for a spin. Parents metamorphose from being guardians and protectors into something else. Often the familial discourse can become antagonistic and oppositional; you are compelled to seek the sanctuary of those like you, whose experiences are similar and are probably confronted with the same challenges you are facing.

At this time you begin to take an interest in yourself that has not been there before. You desire to create an individual identity that expresses yourself and also an identity that is considered acceptable by the Peer Group.

The Peer Group has its drivers and mentors who set the agenda, the look and the tone of the group’s identity. The adolescent peer group is a pumped-up sequence of events; hormones are being released into the bloodstream for the first time in such concentrated doses. Young people are trying to accommodate a hormonal cocktail that can create all manner of stresses and place them into improbable situations.

Testosterone is the most unreasonable hormone around and the territorial aspirations of young men are extraordinary to watch and be involved with.

Recent experiences with elephants at a game reserve in Pilanesberg, South Africa presented a disquieting phenomenon. Other animals in the supposed safety of the reserves, notably rhino, were killed in what appeared to be a gratuitous manner. Initially the culprits were a mystery. Elephants tend to be very even tempered and these were particularly nasty and uncharacteristic killings. Quite out of keeping with any previously experienced elephant behaviour.

Eventually it was discovered who was culpable; witnesses watched in disbelief as young male elephants made unwelcome sexual advances on rhino. The unfortunate rhino rejected these advances and the enraged elephants systematically bullied and killed the hapless animals. Experts were called in and worked out the common theme in the elephant’s life story was that they were all orphaned. They had been grouped together as displaced youngsters by well intending agencies without older role models to mentor them.

Subsequently they moved from their elephant childhood and entered a state of ‘super-adolescence’. Fuelled by unmediated testosterone surges they wreaked havoc. The missing link was the moderating influence of older and wiser elephants who were custodians of the elephant way. In its simplest terms, there were no role models for the young bulls to take their lead from.

When the Pilanesberg rangers worked out what was happening, they introduced mature bull elephants to the herd. The killing spree and unruly behaviour stopped instantly as the regulating influence of the older bulls asserted itself. The implications of this are far reaching. The principles involved illustrate the dynamics at play in adolescence and Peer Group acquiescence.

How do we learn? Take academia out of the equation and we are left with the oral tradition, observation and modelling or copying the behaviour of others, we look for role models. If we are fortunate, there will be positive role models whose behaviour we can integrate. As children, we all played copying games; essentially a rehearsal for later life whereby we replicate the behaviour of adults. We play the role without understanding it. Many years later, perhaps when we are adults ourselves, the significance and understanding of the role becomes clear to us. Something innate within recognises that the adults are keepers of a quality that we do not understand, but accept the authority of. They are the guardians of the community, keepers of the ways and the guarantors of social cohesion. In this way, we can see how generations pass along what they have learned. Adults show and tell their offspring what they have learned and understood themselves. Theoretically, each generation takes and refines that knowledge and so progress is assured.

None of the displaced, orphaned elephants had recourse to the body of knowledge that mature elephants had. The transference was interrupted. That collective intelligence that passed from generation to generation had no opportunity to establish itself within the young elephant’s cognizance. When adolescence kicked in, the restraining influence of their elders was simply non-existent. The very thing in the young elephants that sought guidance had no focus. The most dominant male, invariably the one most powerfully affected by the hormonal releases, became the role model that set the standard. The prevailing order among the herd collapsed and anarchy took its place.

The Pilanesberg scenario can be transposed to human societies. In the context of our inquiry, the key question you must ask is: were there situations in your own formative years where similar behaviours or attitudes were allowed to grow unchecked? You may well find things that developed due to lack of sound guidance.

At this point, I hope I’m not addressing someone who went on a rhino-killing spree! I’m sure you will recognise rather less extreme manifestations of the phenomenon of adolescent identity asserting itself in your own case.

Young women experience a different process. While young men are sampling the delights of testosterone, pubescent girls undergo changes brought about by the hormones oestrogen and progesterone.  When they reach puberty, young women experience menarche (from the Greek ‘Moon beginning’). They begin to menstruate and find themselves in a monthly cycle of hormonal fluctuations, which can influence their mood and state dramatically.

Their mental and emotional furniture is rearranged, they become subject to a blend of influences that are quite new and alien to them. Throughout all of this, there is a pressure to conform to a particular prototype that the Peer Group has created. This gives plentiful opportunities for stress, conflict and drama.

This is a time when people are falling in and out of love with stunning rapidity. Making huge statements one day and completely reversing them the next; a time when lifelong friends are suddenly bitter enemies and there is general confusion afoot. The combination of erratic influences gives rise to implausible situations; young people coerced by influences that they struggle to manage find themselves compromised. In extreme instances, these are unplanned life altering or defining moments.

No doubt, you will recall disarranging and embarrassing experiences from your own personal adolescent saga. Take solace in the knowledge that we all went through it. The crucial factor here being, how much of it came with you when you left it behind? How many items of excess baggage do you carry that really belong in the adolescent cocktail shaker you eventually managed to escape from?

It’s a time when young people seek out the support and companionship of others who are experiencing similar upheaval. The wisdom of the Peer Group becomes the oracle they consult. The territory is ripe for misinformation, urban myths and confusion. Unless you have taken time to update ideas formed at that time, they’re still in there, exerting their influence.

There are attendant factors that give the Peer Group its identity. How it deals with new issues such as sexual activity, boyfriends, girlfriends, alcohol, tobacco and drugs. The fashions and styles of the moment, music and youth culture.

These factors create an environment that influences the young person massively. That environment can program them in ways that stay with them for the rest of their lives as determining features of how they respond and react to anything that crosses their path.

So the question now is, what was your Peer Group like? Within the hierarchy of the micro-society you belonged to, where did you gravitate towards? The academic, the rebellious, the sporty, the conformists, the nerds, the comedians; the list goes on but they all have their own conditions and articles of association.

Did you consider yourself an insider, an outsider, a fake? As you struggled to find a place for yourself, what things were caused in you and are any of them still live issues? The Peer Group can be seen as the dry run or the test drive of the person you have become or are becoming. It can be an awkward and clumsy place where mistakes are made as you learn to handle the raw materials of the person that you will emerge as.

There is misunderstanding regarding what works and the kind of results that can be achieved by the, as yet, unproven range of roles and fledgling identities. Think chat up lines, trying to find the right clothes for a night out; the etiquette challenges – is it ‘Mrs. R’, ‘Mrs. Robinson’ or ‘Mary’ for your friend’s mother?

This is an experimental time where discovering what works is a key feature and where the landscape is unfamiliar and potentially intimidating. It is an obstacle course and many fall by the wayside. From the obvious things like unplanned pregnancies and substance abuse issues; to the more subtle, like acquiring unhelpful character traits that can arrest a person’s development.

The way you are affected by and deal with the issues raised by adolescence and the Peer Group identity you choose to be subjected to will influence the way the rest of your life unfolds.

Perhaps for the first time you will be making choices of your own. You will be obliged to deal with the consequences of those choices whether their impact is positive or negative. The Peer Group defines what is acceptable or not, it sets the agenda that may come to occupy your time and thoughts. Each generation has its own particular ideas and challenges as it attempts to define its collective identity.

As human societies develop there is constant change and reformation. There are times when this is particularly acute and the speed of change increases; we are in such a time now. There are times when there is comparatively little change; prior to the Industrial Revolution, for example, the life of a simple agrarian worker or peasant remained unchanged for centuries.

It is possible to discuss these things almost indefinitely but what is common to all adults is that they negotiated a path through these often troubled times in their lives and came out the other side. Puberty and adolescence is a time of personal metamorphosis. We leave the relative safety of childhood to embark upon life’s journey as independent travellers. Our entire life’s experience is to do with influence; we are considering the impact that external influences at a particularly charged time have upon our lives. Outcomes are definitive, they prepare us for development, or they place us further away from the possibility of development. The Mechanics of Happiness is definitively a guide to prepare the reader for growth and development; in that context, this is a personal labyrinth that requires your understanding.

The adolescent Peer Group is the shelter from the storm. What compels people often places them into conflict with one another. Adults, usually parents, easily become antagonists. They take on the role of resistors; in all areas of life, there is resistance, at this hyper charged time the resistance seems more acute. The Peer Group becomes a place of least resistance. It satisfies certain needs, provides a sense of belonging and becomes its members’ emotional home. What happens within its domain is especially potent. You have only to look at the catalogue of ‘Coming of Age’ movies to see this; an inciting event occurs and impacts dramatically upon the lives of all concerned. Consider also that in world history, vast numbers of the combatants, soldiers and dare I say ‘cannon fodder’ involved in wars and conflicts come from this age group.

Critical within all of this is the awareness that very little of it is you. The identity you have forged has been like a magpie gathering shiny things, picking up the bits you were attracted to and trying them on for size. This may have made you a smooth social operator and given you passport in the world. In the Universe, however, in the confines of development, that identity is circumstantial and of little relevance.

Don’t be despondent, far better to be an effective social animal than the person everyone avoids if you are not going to be a hermit. See that the social identity is something that carries no great weight in real terms and exists more as a convenience, an interface with the world. The world is a place of exchange, a great trading floor where commodities are bartered for and haggled over. The identity that you form is best considered as a trading identity, the role you play in order to take part in the business of the world. Understand that the business of the world is not the business of Creation. The two exist as very separate domains, naturally, there is a border where they interact, but as you move further into the hinterland of either, the validity of its counterpart diminishes. Reading this now places you right on the border. The world is a stage, but the Universe is your home. Naturally, you need an identity to operate on that stage, but it is only partial. Like a chameleon adapts to its environment you will adapt to the world you find yourself in, but it is not you, it is a role.

Why do I say that? Well it’s important to know that development is impersonal at one level, the first level. There may be things in your identity that are no longer applicable. If you love them and cherish them, they may be hard to let go of; so try not to attach too great a significance to them or get possessive about them. If you do, it may diminish the possibility of your future growth and development.

That may sound harsh but, eyes on the prize, remember what we’re dealing with here is vitally important to you personally because it concerns the journey that you will travel to achieve happiness, fulfilment, and the sense of being reconnected to the original purpose of your life, whatever that may be.”

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