What Does Maturity Look Like?
These are just some of the components of Maturity. Feel free to add others.
You can find good teachers and excellent literature on each of these subjects, but seldom, if ever, are they combined into a whole.
To be mature, you need to add a good number of these components to your life. Be a good mixture.
Take care of yourself but also add value to the world.
You may have read hundreds of books, but what does that matter if you do not take responsibility for your actions?
You may be a champion of critical thinking, but you will not lead a good life if you are not kind and appreciative.
Without Maturity, you will have a life without meaning.
You will be a child in an adult’s body.
An astonishing number of people never grow up. They remain self-centred and short-sighted. They stumble through life. They drink the same tepid tea and have the same tedious talks.
From the cradle to the grave.
Maturity Exists on a Spectrum
Few of us are as mature as we could be, but some people have more growing up to do than others. The typical narcissist is on the lower end of the Maturity spectrum.
Not all immature people are narcissists, but all narcissists are highly immature.
Highly mature people are rare. That is why on a list of good people the same names turn up: Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and recently – president Zelensky.
Maturity is a life-long commitment. You will never be finished with growing up. Much like physical exercise you also need to stick to it.
What Maturity Does NOT Look Like
To understand what Maturity looks like it may be easier to imagine what it does NOT look like.
And by “mature” or “immature “I mean those on either end of the spectrum.
Most of us move around somewhere in the middle.
The immature do not take responsibility. Neither for their words, nor their actions nor their emotions.
Some of these toddlers know what they are doing and wittingly inflict pain. But most of them are so self-absorbed that they are oblivious.
The 40-year-old self-pitying and blaming crybaby is NOT mature. Neither is the sleeky, spineless manipulator who talks and talks but seldom walks.
The gullible sheep, mimicking people around them, do not belong to the world of the mature either.
Not to mention the one who starts a social media storm after watching a 15-second-long video clip taken out of its context.
But Immaturity may have much more sinister consequences.
Here is a topical example.
The War in Ukraine: A Result of Immaturity
If Putin had included all the components in the Maturity Wheel (not just evil visions) in his being would we have had a war in Ukraine?
If fewer Russians had been so indifferent about politics and taken more responsibility?
If more of us here in the West had not been so eager to give Putin and his cronies the benefit of the doubt?
“But I couldn’t have done anything to stop Putin?”
Yes, you could. Your single action would not have made much difference, but at least you did something. If enough people had done the same, it would have helped.
Millions of Germans voted for politicians who supported the country’s dependency on Russian gas.
British people supported football teams owned by Russian oligarchs.
People in Norway had some hesitations about the Winter Olympics in Russia in 2014 but watched it all the same. Contributing to Russian hubris.
After that lecture, you may be ready for something more positive:
“What is in it for me.” How Maturity can make your life better.
So that you can say to yourself, on your deathbed, that you have had a life well lived.
Click the link and read about the
Benefits of Maturity.
What Do You Know About Maturity?
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