Call it a fuddy duddy. Stick-in-the-mud (which by the way sounds better than being mud, doesn’t it?). A party pooper.

These are all society’s acceptable names that seem to be okay to call someone who does not give into peer pressure.

Guess what?

Your mommy is proud to have been called all of them.

Because sometimes, well sometimes, it’s important to stand up for something you believe in.

And people are going to feel threatened that you might not agree with their actions.

By you refusing to do an action with them, it calls into question their own morality.

People don’t like that.

But you should “stick to your guns anyway.”

This will probably lead them to result to name calling. Those words will hurt. Don’t think they won’t. But not as much as your soul will hurt if you go against it. The names they will call you may cut deeper than a “stick in the mud.” And as hard as this will be, you must ignore them.

When I was a child there was a nonsense little saying that went like this:

“Sticks and stones may break my bones,
But words will never hurt me.”

That saying is ridiculous. Words are the most powerful thing in the world.

You might also notice that in Mommy’s time people were kind of obsessed with sticks.

I can’t explain this.

There must have been more trees back then.

This probably explains the many leaf idioms, as well.

But even back then, people fought the word, “no.”

Maybe they never learned differently. Maybe they just want to make their own choices. And that is okay. As long as you get to, too.

Because you should respect the use of someone else using that word, too.

Otherwise, we might as well all be made of sticks and leaves. And even stones.

Being human is more than that.

At least, it should be.

If your friends or adversaries still will not understand your decision to not conform to their decision, well, I guess they “got the short end of the stick.”
Maybe you could, “Help them turn over a new leaf.”
If not, have more confidence than one can “shake a stick at.”

In today’s terms:

IOW, JTLYK, YOLO.

YKWYCD?

JSN!

ILY,

Mommy