Expectations In The Things They Carried

Expectations, whether it be in the form of peer pressure, pressure from one’s parents, or even pressure from oneself, have always been omnipresent. From cracking O’Brien to etching a painful scar in my mind, pressure from expectations has always led people to make significant decisions, yet not all of these decisions are necessarily good. In The Things They Carried, O’Brien is faced with the major decision of whether he should partake in the Vietnam War. While making the decision, O’Brien mentions how “All those eyes on me- the town, the whole universe- and I couldn’t risk the embarrassment. It was as if there were an audience to my life, that swirl of faces along the river, and in my head I could hear people screaming at me. Traitor! They
He had a lisp, glasses, and was extremely short for his age. He would wear the same clothing every day to school, and acted in an extremely peculiar fashion. All my friends mocked him behind his back and would laugh at him every time they saw him in the hallways. He would act funny even when was not trying to, tripping all over the place, spilling lunch on his shirt on picture day, asking out a popular girl in my grade, only to get rejected and scoffed at. As everyone would constantly make of this pigeon trying to assimilate into our society of crows, I would silently gaze at the boy, trying to make eye contact, with sympathy gushing from my heart. I truly felt sorry for him. I too had gotten bullied when I immigrated to the U.S. from India. I knew how it felt like to walk around in school with faces peering at you every second, and get overwhelmed by laughter from my peers. I too, at one point, had no one to talk to, and had gotten to the point where I did not want to attend school any longer. Yet I had found a friend amidst this havoc, who helped me get through elementary school, even though he had to suffer the backlash of him getting bullied as
That day, as I headed out, it was a stormy day. There were big puddles on the ground. As I walked out to the playground, I noticed that a bunch of my friends had congregated there. As I stood with my friends, I notice the boy who everyone bullied, also walking towards us.
“Hey guyth!” he grinned as he walked toward us. “Jason thed that we’re going to chill out at hith houthe?”
I spun around, confused, looking at Jason. He’s smirking. So are the rest of my friends. And I realize that the boy was set up. There was no way that Jason would ever associate himself with the boy.
“Yep! Just come a bit closer for a second!” Jason replied.
The boy walked closer to Jason only to get pushed back into the water. He fell back with a loud splash and horror on his face. I wanted to puke. I was utterly disgusted and flabbergasted. I was at a loss for words. As my friends started pushing around the boy, I stood back, revolted. I wondered why I chose to become friends with such a group of people. I wondered why I was just standing there doing nothing. I wondered why I was too scared to actually do something about this situation. I just stood there, watching the incident, until I met his eyes. He looked at me, with sadness in his eyes. And then I started to tear up. But yet I didn’t do anything. To this day, I did not do anything. I did not report my friends. I did not go up to the boy and try to console him, just