If Your Friend Jumped Off the Roof …

This hypothetical question has been asked for decades to illustrate the importance of carefully thinking about one’s actions, regardless of what others are doing.

And it has proven to be a fairly effective deterrent to the power of peer pressure and its evil cousin, peer envy. Most of the time.

I begged my parents for accordion lessons for no other reason than that the most popular girl in the 4^th grade took first place in our spring talent show playing “Lady of Spain” on a stomach Steinway — complete with bellow shakes!

Probably because of my broad exposure to literature like The Baltimore Catechism and role models like St. Agnes, who was martyred in defense of her virginity, I always tried to emulate what I admired (actually, what I thought others admired). Fortunately, I outgrew this pattern in 2010, when Lady Gaga wore a meat dress at the VMAs, but I know the phenomenon has survived. In fact, when I recently asked my grandchildren, “If Taylor Swift jumped off a roof, would you?”, three of them gave it more serious thought than I expected.

Wise Ask: What have you done because you saw someone else rewarded for it?

Share your answer below.