Being mature has always looked like a Mirage in the desert to me. More I think of getting closer to it, more distant it seems. I have always been curious to understand the meaning of being ‘Mature’. The dictionary meaning says “having reached a stage of mental or emotional development characteristic of an adult”. What’s the benchmark of emotional development in an adult?. My quest for its meaning has brought me to the most simple and yet complete characteristic of maturity. It’s the “ability to take complete responsibility of one’s life, decisions and relationships”. Being completely unreasonable to yourself i.e not giving reasons or excuses for being a certain way.
To attain this level of maturity and take ownership of one’s life and decisions, it takes a great deal of understanding about SELF and the way we RELATE with the outside world. We typically live with the world view of “Outside-In” i.e. the outside circumstances effect our inner being. If we take a pause to reflect – what is that exist outside of us in our life? Our Past, Present and Future?. Take a moment to look behind you physically and see where is your past? Or look ahead if you can see the Future?. I know its rubbish because you can’t physically see what has happened and also what’s going to happen. Past only exist inside us in form of ‘Memories’ and future exist inside us in form of ‘Imagination’. What stands in front of us physically is the present, in form of ‘Possibilities or choices’.
If you see your past as a film, you will realize that all your life has been a series of events and your response to it along with the interpretation of the past or perception about the present. The maturity is in the ability to consciously choose the responses to the events.
Our choice of response (that I call as the choices of maturity) is driven by either or combination of following factors.
- Emotions
- Feelings
- Facts
If we are driven by emotions and feelings then it’s very likely that we are making decisions by moods that swing with the shift in feelings and emotions. If we plot them in a graph then our consistency in decisions will look like an ECG. However, if we are self-aware and take a pause to see if we are driven by facts, then our decisions are backed by confidence and positive emotions.
There is something that still stops us from taking complete ownership and responsibility of our lives. This is our basic human nature to look “right” than being “real”. The moment we have both the distinctions in our awareness and we take our decision by facts and being real, it gives back the power in our hand that we often give it to others by being inauthentic about ourselves.
It takes lot of courage and self-discipline to be REAL and FACT based in life. I’m not saying that we should ignore the feelings and emotions. Rather they are the lifeline of human relationships. We should be more aware of our state of making choices when it comes to responding back to life.
Sending Love, Laughter and Joy…… Parth