Write about an experience you've had that makes you who you are Essay

Write about an experience you've had that makes you who you are - Essay Example I thought of smokers as idiots who waste money to buy ash and smoke to inject the carbon into their lungs and ruin their health. I did not smoke because I could not identify even a single benefit of this habit. I saw the purple lips of the chain smokers and that drew me further away from the thought of smoking a cigarette ever. But there was something strange happening to me when I was sitting amongst them and not smoking when all of them were doing it. I felt stranger and disconnected from the group. It was a pathetic feeling. It seemed like I had been outcast or was socially excluded. It felt anything but good. I had an inside feeling that it would not harm me if I gave it a try just for that time. While I was struggling with my inner feeling and denying the fact that I wanted to smoke there and then, one of my friends started criticizing me for not smoking. He called me â€Å"a Mama’s boy†, and the rest of them joined him in making fun of me. Then one of them said, à ¢â‚¬Å"Oh common Jonny, I know you can do it!† They presented it to me like a challenge, that I was too bold to deny accepting. The group process overwhelmed me and I did take a cigarette, pursed it between my lips, lit it at the end, and inhaled it!!! I was not being myself and it felt worse than before! Group that an individual forms part of influences the individual and convinces him/her to do things that he/she would never even think of doing as an individual. Group norms and values are quite different and often in conflict with the norms and values of at least some members of the group. Group’s norms and values are established with mutual consensus of the more powerful, influential and dominating members. Passive participants in the group work have to abide by the norms and values thus established by the active participants. Their compliance promotes harmony and retaliation promotes conflict. Thus, in order to work peacefully in a group, members