Pressured by whom? How? 

If it is true, you are out of the running. A seminary or religious order can't accept you! This may be surprising, but it is true. A vocation is a call from God. He calls freely because he loves you. But he calls you. This means all that you are. And as a human person, one of the principal things about you is that you are free. The only kind of response that God wants from you, or that is worthy of him, is a free response. 

So we have to look at this carefully. 

pressure and influence 

It might seem at first like splitting hairs to make this distinction. But it is important to remember in the first place that we are not independent islands in the world. Our lives are affected by many people around us and by the culture we grew up and live in. As a result, we develop tastes and outlooks that become part of what we are and which, in a certain sense, define us. 

All this to make a point. When talking about pressure we have to distinguish between it and influence in order to accept the reality of influence and be able to see the difference between good and bad pressure. Pressure is usually taken as "undue influence," i.e. eliminating or stomping on freedom. But it can also be "strong influence," which can be good if it does not override freedom. 

The second thing to remember is that we are complex individuals. We are made up of many parts. Not only physical parts but also emotions, feelings, intelligence (usually), will, memory, appetites, instincts, ideals, hopes, spirit, sin and grace... And each one of these exerts its influence on the whole. 

You are not an island. You have parents, relatives, friends and neighbors, groups you belong to, people who make demands on you. As if that were not enough, you know that our world is not limited to the people we see or the things we feel inside.  

We live another life too, the world of the spirit, the world of the interaction - love, interest, salvation - between you and Christ. There is a further interaction - deception, seduction, undoing - that Satan is trying to establish, although he would probably blush if he had to say so in public: you see, that is his private morality and you have no right to question it. 

Now, where is this leading us?  

You said you think you might have a vocation but you feel you are being pressured. Well, what you have to do is sort out what you mean by that. 

Is someone standing over you, waving a finger at you and saying we have a lawyer, we have a doctor and now you are going to be "the priest of the family?" They say it used to happen in the past, I couldn't tell. That would be obvious pressure. I've never seen it. Or rather I have seen it, but only used in the other direction: Don't you dare go into the seminary, after all your mother and I have spent on your education...  

What is more common is for us to feel a vocation and then start questioning it. Where did it come from? Was it the Sisters in school? Am I just doing this to please my parents? It seems that I got the thought of a vocation from such and such a circumstance, from someone who mentioned it to me...how can it be a real vocation if I could never have felt it without going on that on retreat?...all those interminable stumpers that seem to force us to conclude, maybe I am thinking or doing this under someone else's influence, maybe it is not a free decision.  

how "free" are we, really?  

A lot depends on what we expect of ourselves. And in vocational discernment, we sometimes expect too much. We want to be totally free, and everything to be perfectly clear to us. But we are only human. 

Firstly, you will never be free from influences. Advertisers will see to that. But, more fundamentally, your nature says so. It is true in the material things and it is also true in the spiritual things. The books you read will always be with you even long after you've forgotten the story. The parables you have heard from Christ in the Gospel will come back to haunt you or encourage you, depending on the direction you give to your life. The memory of good things done to you will soften your attitudes. Your choice of music will reflect your soul. If you're a westerner, you may never get to be completely comfortable with chopsticks. 

Influences, then, are not an unnatural intrusion and obstacle. As a matter of fact, being part and parcel of what you are, they are something God is going to take very much into account and use when he calls you. And also his enemy the devil is going to try to use them to get you not to do what God wants. The question to ask when examining a vocation is not, am I being influenced? but rather, is this the way God influences, could this be his voice? At another time we will have to consider the way he usually speaks to us and some of the signs of his presence or influence. 

Secondly, remember that how you react to the influences around you will tell you what kind of person you are. In its practical form, freedom consists fundamentally in deciding what you are going to let influence you. 

As a person your freedom consists in deciding if you will accept and act under the influence of the call to the higher, nobler things, or cave in to the demands of your baser instincts that are catered to so easily in society. 

As a Christian, you ask yourself whether you will live according to the influence of your faith in Christ and his message in the Gospel, or according to the world; if you will spend your life amassing only things of this world, or strive to attain those things that last beyond the grave. 

The way you react to the real influences that are always there around you is what matters, not the fact that they exist. 

some benefits 

Thirdly, there can be something beneficial in strong influence and pressure. It can help. The pressure of competition and the fans can bring out the best in champions. The pressure of the expectations of those we respect can make us outdo ourselves. And then there are times when, despite knowing what is best for us, we know we are not able to do it on our own and we seek that support.  

This brings us to another point. 

the "pressure" of conscience 

There are pressures within ourselves. Those that come from our conscience, causing a great number of our interior struggles. And the pressures of love, of duty, of moral imperatives.  

We admire others who can resolve these inner struggles with correct actions (the hero who stands up against all odds at considerable personal risk for the sake of others). What we cannot do is imitate them peacefully.  

There are times we wish we didn't know what was right so as to be able to do what is easier. Christ must understand us after spending that night in Gethsemane.  

Is this pressure that our conscience exerts on us good or bad? It certainly lets us know if something is, or is likely to be wrong. It is like pain: it would be worse if we were not sensitive to it, for we'd never know the danger we were in.  

But as regards conscience you have to say more. It is more like inside information: we'd never know our opportunities without it. 

the "pressure" of truth 

If our conscience is good for us, and its voice beneficial, what would we have to say about a real friend who respects us enough to tell us the truth about ourselves? And if the truth that he or she sees is that you might have a vocation? And if your friend argues with you? And knows when you are trying to deceive yourself? Because he tells you the truth he sees and not what you want to hear, isn't his honesty and faithfulness a form of pressure?  

Often when people speak about pressure they mean this type - when an honest friend (maybe a spiritual friend or director) does not accept the cop-out and brings them up against themselves and the truth. And it really hurts when, inside, you have the suspicion the other might be right. 

mature acceptance of influence 

Though we are not absolutely free in the way we would often like to imagine, we are, nevertheless, free. To sum up all we have said up to now, we can say that we have intelligence and faith which allow us to examine critically all the influences we come under. Based on this examination our conscience will tell us what we should choose to do. 

As long as the pressure to do the good comes only from outside ourselves we are still not mature. When it comes from inside us, or while coming from the outside it is fully accepted by us internally, then we can say that we have reached a state of maturity in the use of our freedom.  

the "pressure" of love 

There is something scary about the preamble, "Do you love me?" 

When we hear it we know that more often than not it is a subtle set-up. Dads are wary of the question, especially if it comes from a teenage daughter eyeing the car keys. Love exerts its pressure. Love can make us do things we don't want to. Love sets many of our personal plans on end and turns our world upside down.  

Yet, could we live without love? Doesn't it often make us better people, whether it be love for our parents, our country, or God? 

If you love God, you are going to feel pressures that the person who doesn't, cannot. He'll laugh at you and tell you you are only on a guilt trip. Not only will your love for God "pressure" you into avoiding some things your friend thinks are normal and even healthy, it will also "pressure" you into doing other things that he will find utterly incomprehensible, such as giving your life to God to do his work. 

conclusion 

So I think you should look at the root of the pressure you feel. If it is from the outside and nothing more, don't give it a second thought. Don't let that be a motive for doing something as important as making a life-decision. If it starts from the outside, but really bothers you because there is something working on the inside too, if your conscience is saying that might be right, then it is time to do something. 

It is time to go on your knees if you haven't done so yet. Because you and your Friend have a lot to talk about.