Sandals and Necklace: Urban Outfitters
"It's a long road to wisdom. It's a short one to being ignored." - The Lumineers
I often hear people refer to themselves and others like them as being "mature." They take great pride in their belief that they've got their head on straight and life all figured out. They also seem to take great pleasure in pointing out the shortfalls of others and even laying down punishment when others fall short of their expectations. I find it ironic that most of the time these same people have had very few life experiences. They've rarely been tested in life and have usually been sheltered and surrounded by people who stroke their egos, leaving them incapable of having any empathy at all.
There is a saying that happiness is a journey, not a destination. Well, the same can be said for maturity. I am of the opinion that one is never done maturing. At 36 years of age, I consider myself as being halfway there on the maturity spectrum. Maturity is about constantly changing and not staying fixed in one point of view. Maturity is about questioning our beliefs and not declaring our word as an absolute truth that can never be shaken. Most importantly, though, maturity is about forgiveness, because only a mature mind has the ability to see things from a point of view other than its own.
“For I am—or I was—one of those people who pride themselves on their willpower, on their ability to make a decision and carry it through. This virtue, like most virtues, is ambiguity itself. People who believe that they are strong-willed and the masters of their destiny can only continue to believe this by becoming specialists in self-deception. Their decisions are not really decisions at all—a real decision makes one humble, one knows that it is at the mercy of more things than can be named—but elaborate systems of evasion, of illusion, designed to make themselves and the world appear to be what they and the world are not."
- James Baldwin
I often hear people refer to themselves and others like them as being "mature." They take great pride in their belief that they've got their head on straight and life all figured out. They also seem to take great pleasure in pointing out the shortfalls of others and even laying down punishment when others fall short of their expectations. I find it ironic that most of the time these same people have had very few life experiences. They've rarely been tested in life and have usually been sheltered and surrounded by people who stroke their egos, leaving them incapable of having any empathy at all.
There is a saying that happiness is a journey, not a destination. Well, the same can be said for maturity. I am of the opinion that one is never done maturing. At 36 years of age, I consider myself as being halfway there on the maturity spectrum. Maturity is about constantly changing and not staying fixed in one point of view. Maturity is about questioning our beliefs and not declaring our word as an absolute truth that can never be shaken. Most importantly, though, maturity is about forgiveness, because only a mature mind has the ability to see things from a point of view other than its own.
“For I am—or I was—one of those people who pride themselves on their willpower, on their ability to make a decision and carry it through. This virtue, like most virtues, is ambiguity itself. People who believe that they are strong-willed and the masters of their destiny can only continue to believe this by becoming specialists in self-deception. Their decisions are not really decisions at all—a real decision makes one humble, one knows that it is at the mercy of more things than can be named—but elaborate systems of evasion, of illusion, designed to make themselves and the world appear to be what they and the world are not."
- James Baldwin
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