A Definition of Maturity
After dealing with ex, friendship, and roommate issues, I've started to look more closely at the idea of "Maturity." A lot of people link maturity with the idea of, "Oh great, I have to grow up now..." But it's more than that. There are different levels of maturity which exist - physical maturity and emotional maturity. I associate emotional maturity with stability - something which I was definitely missing in my past relationship and something I look forward to experiencing in future relationships. Below is some awesome information I found on Maturity which is totally aligned with how I feel on the subject.
In Summary:
The adult with a capacity for true maturity is one who has grown out of childhood experiences without losing childhood's best traits. He has retained the basic emotional strengths of infancy, the stubborn autonomy of "toddlerhood", the capacity for wonder and pleasure and playfulness of the preschool years, the capacity for affiliation and intellectual curiosity of the school years, and the idealism and passion of adolescence. He has incorporated these into a new pattern of simplicity dominated by adult stability, wisdom, knowledge, sensitivity to other people, responsibility, strength, and purposefulness.
Statements Describing or Referring to a Mature Person:
1. If an individual is going to grow toward the kind of maturity we are talking about, he will find it helpful to have secure development, pre-adult underpinnings - he should not have to deflect his energies into "refighting" childhood battles or nursing old hurts. Maturity can only be built on sound foundations.
2. When a person can live with his past without being bogged down by it, he remains adaptable, capable of continued change.
3. Another characteristic of becoming mature is the development of wisdom.
4. The mature individual can be ribald or genteel, sweet or acid, jolly or glum. The important point is that he be alive, with vigorous interests that make him interesting to be with. He should have a sense of humor.
5. An important characteristic of the individual who becomes mature is that he is at home with reality.
6. The mature individual cannot look outer reality in the face unless he is prepared to look himself in the face, too. He is at home with himself.
7. It follows that the mature individual has to be able to love comfortably with his own body, whether it be strong or weak, handsome or ugly, healthy or failing.
8. If the individual's growth toward maturity is rooted in the positive emotional bonds of early infancy, human relationships are going to have a high priority for him.
9. The person equipped with the human sensitivities that make for maturity will usually have powerful concern with social problems and ways of alleviating them.
10. For all his social-mindedness, for all his savoring of human relationships, the maturing individual is not dependent on always having company.
11. It is apparent that the person who is becoming mature does not accept values readymade.
12. The mature individual has to learn when to conform and when not to conform, when to speak out and when to remain silent. His values must be so structured and scaled that he can distinguish between what is central and inviolable and what is peripheral and expendable - or at least can be postponed.
13. To live realistically (which by no means forbids the conscious exploitation and employment of fantasy) means to live in consciousness of one's own mortality.
14. The mature person knows that he has to go on choosing alternatives, that each alternative costs him something, and there are things he will never be able to do and experience. He also knows that there are things he will never be able to do again, that he can never recapture his youth or relive his first encounters with certain experiences. He knows that his integrity is continually threatened by practical demands, by seductive temptations, by concessions and compromises, by conflicting values, and can only be preserved at the cost of some psychic strain.
15. He knows that the only real rewards in life come with continued growth, and that there is no room in the one material life he has for major regrets. This individual who has approached maturity can know that he has loved, had done his work, has made his mark on people and, although he wishes there were more time, that he has made the most of what there was
One Final Word:
For those of you who are struggling with maturity - embrace it, don't fear it or shy from it. In other words - Grow the Fuck up, you're a damn adult so start acting like one! Stop being such a dumb shit and look around, there are other people that exist in the world besides yourself!!
