Maturity
Have you ever looked up the word Mature? Are you mature? By whose standards are you mature?
My definition of mature is the ability to take into consideration the long term affects of current decisions. Wisdom is the ability to accurately predict how current decisions will affect the future. Maturity and wisdom go hand in hand. You can consider the long term affects of a current decision, but if you don’t have a clue about what the possible long term affects are, then your maturity is limited. This is why we go to school, and listen to our elders. So we don’t have to actually make as many mistakes as possible, but we learn vicariously through others shared knowledge. As my grandmother would say “A hard head makes a soft bottom”
So when you are face with a decision to do something that feels real good right now (immediate gratification) yet increases the risk of a negative outcome in the future, do you weigh the good with the bad. Or do you jump right in and suffer the consequences later.
If you have the opportunity to have sex with a person on the first date, you have to decide to do it or not; you have to decide to have oral sex or not; you have to decide to use a condom or not. You have to decide if the risk of this being a fatal attraction once you get physical is worth it. We all know the risk involved with permissiveness, but many of us take that gamble.
Have you ever been in a relationship and felt something was wrong, so instead of considering what outcome you truly want, you act out of emotion and make the situation worse? Many times you’ll find that you over reacted. Well that is letting your emotions get the best of you. It is very difficult to manage your emotions, but you must rely on maturity to not take action based on those uncontrollable emotions. Stop, take a breath and think on it before you react. Ask yourself, what do you wish the outcome to be. Probably, you want that thought of something wrong to not be correct. So don’t act out in a way that if there was nothing wrong, there is now because you just showed your ass with stupidity.
Have you ever known someone who continued to make immature comments? They say something that pops in their head without thinking of the long term affects of hurting someone’s feelings and damaging their relationship. Or just loosing the respect of others, which will haunt a person when they need to be taken seriously.
Maturity is better served warm, this means that you don’t have to make decisions while you are hot and bothered. You also don’t have to say no to living a quality and adventurous life for the sake of being “mature”, which is maturity served cold. Serving it warm means that you have a code that you live by, a plan. You can balance the risk in your life for enhancement without the high chance of living the rest of your life in a sling. Prepare with deep thought so that when you find yourself in situations, you know what to do. Some people rely on their religion to give them that guidance. Or maybe discussions with their parents that they actually listened to.
Between the age of 15 and 25 we make mistakes that we spend the remainder of our lives trying to correct. The object of the game is to find maturity as quickly as possible to reduce the regret, pain and anguish. People with morals, standards and self-respect tend to make more mature decisions than those who are most interested in immediate gratification. Which are you?
It seems your theme of recent can be categorized as achieving manhood/adulthood.
One of the guidelines I was lucky enough to follow is that it is better to shut your mouth and have people assume your ignorance than to open it and prove it….or something to that affect.
Often, I am amazed when I meet young people who have defined their values and goals much earlier than I did. I now understand my shortfall is likely because my family situation could not prepare me for the world and, had I not served in the military, I may still not be performing very efficiently. One of my major goals is to help my daughter look ahead, anticipate life’s events and have a grounding in navigating life’s obstacles. The more effectively a person can navigate this journey, the quicker they achieve this maturity and the more rewarding life can be.
The process of this maturing surely is better learned through the experiences, mistakes and lessons from others but there are a lot of people, like me, who had to learn a lot of things the hard way….repeatedly.
While I consider myself fairly mature, much of the pleasure one receives from life is continued learning/development.
I think maturity stems from wisdom. When I use this word, im using it to show that you dont always have to experience things to figure things out because a wise man will see another person do something and use the outcome from that situation to test how they will then approach the situation. However, certain experiences are inevitable and how we apply that to our lives shows a measure of maturity.
Maturity also stems from knowing who you are. Many who are immature have something to prove to others, whereas many who are said to be mature only have to prove things to themselves. A sense of security and pride of who we makes one mature. Sadly it takes people years to be grounded in who they are, which is why you see 15-25 year olds struggling with this. Many do not know who they are. And finding maturity is not limited to this age group either, because if we are talking about men being mature, many don’t even know what it is to be a man either. So let us take time to be wise and not try to please others because if you stand for nothing, you will fall for anything.
Great points, in a soon to be released blog I will address people finding themselves. The title will be “Social Contracts”. This deals with the first social contract we all sign in our “Freshmen stage”, trying to fit in at high school. Throughout a persons life, he/she may make a better decision as to what social contract they want to follow throughout their adulthood. People can sign new social contracts often, for example, having a daughter will change a mans world.
I have found that the best way to mature is to use Godly Wisdom. This is found in the Bible in the book of The Proverbs. I like the Amplified Bible because it really amplifies the words. Starting with Proverbs 1:23, 1:33, then throughout The Proverbs, Chapter 2:6-7, 3:2-5, 2:13, which says “Happy-blessed, fortunate, enviable-is the man (woman) who finds skillful and Godly wisdom, and the man (woman) who gets understanding-drawing it forth from God’s word and life’s experiences.”
Using Godly Wisdom allows one to make wise, insightful, mature decisions, even as a teen.
If we are mature enough to submit to a higher source of wisdom and step out on that base, we can draw power from that source. Biblical wisdom is perfect in that it can’t backslide or be hypocritical. Yet it is open to individual interpretation as well as hypocritical application.
If one is able to filter and is completely knowledgeable of the possible effects of their “immediate gratification” but does not mind the consequence or care to abstain from the behavior, then what does that make them? Ignorant, narcissistic, rude, impolite? Just wondering!
If you are realistically taking the consequences into consideration you can be mature and make those risky decisions at the same time. But suffering consequences may spill over to other people’s lives, causing them to judge and label you. For example, if you die, your children may loose out. If your personal quest causes you to break someone’s heart that was depending on you, those people impacted may consider you irresponsible and/or selfish for not considering their dependence on you to protect their interest. But if you get away with it, what they don’t know won’t hurt… right?
I’m not sure if I want to take this bait but for the sake of honesty, I’ll say… RIGHT! I think everyone has a hint of deceitfulness in their character, that is human nature to push the envelop. But since you bring up secrets or “what they don’t know won’t hurt”, is that immature to believe that unless ones deceit is done solo it has the chance to come to light? They also say “what is done in the dark will come to light” (or something like that)! Personally, I’m not very open in speaking about my personal affairs so private comes disguised as deceit. A lot of my friends refer to me as “sneaky bitch” because they never know what and who I’m doing it with. So much like your “scandalous” posting, there are a lot of things “I” will take to my grave, but will others? I think you need to be a mature person in choosing your partner in crime…or go Solo!
I’m not sure if maturity and deceit are in direct corrilation. If what you do comes to light is more of a matter of luck, especially when someone else is involved. You can be very careful and out of the blue your secret is out, mature or not. But hey, do you… sneaky bitch.
Man o man, that tickled me to pieces! Jermaineharris.com, you never know what you just might get…gotsta love it! Seriously, my initial question was not speaking of deciete and/or the ability to be sneaky and not get caught but to get the perspective of others on how much does immediate gratification actually effect ones maturity. For example, if someone is cognizant to the possibility that what they are about to do or say may hurt someone but they find this exchange of necessity, does that make them immature? When does that fine line fade?
If what you do or how you interact with people places you in a situation that you didn’t intend on being, and you constantly create a disadvantage to yourself, that may be due to immaturity. But if you want to be left alone and don’t care how people react to you being honest, you may lack tact but your maturity is not at question.