By Grace Mwita
Looking at every angle, some people tend to believe that maturity is when you attain old age while some think of body size and looks. A notion that when you have a big body, wrinkled face or grey hair, you are mature. What if we look at it from the perspective that, it is the ability to handle things wisely and with a lot of intelligence.
Being old sometimes may not determine or make one mature . For instance, you may in one way or the other have met someone who you thought was mature to you may be from the first impression you had on the person but after a good interaction with them, you found that your expectations were wrong.
What could have guided you to categorize people differently from how you knew them before? Probably it could be from the way they carry themselves, their talks or the capacity at which he or she understands and interpret things or any issue that they encounter. On the other hand, someone can be a teenager but the way they handle themselves make you classify them as mature. Maybe from the way they behave, talk or the manner in which they handle issues. That can drive you to classify the person as mature.
Maturity is something that varies. Normally a mature person is required to;
- Think wisely before making any decisions and actions
- Understand that life is meant to give lessons and not lead to misery
- Understand that there are responsibilities that in one way or the other should not be evaded.
- Know how to live with people that surround him or her.
- Not be emotionally driven when handling issues
- Know that he should find solutions to problems instead of blaming other people.
- Develop an attitude of learning from what he or she hears and sees.
- Always avoid proving they arere better and right than others. Let them learn it by themselves.
As Nancy Van Pelt says in ‘Smart Love’, Self control and the ability to make wise decisions are important elements of maturity. Human is to error and it is through mistakes that we learn. Correcting our mistakes contribute to us becoming mature. It once happened back in my first year that I could get irritated easily over silly issues. I later realized that I was almost losing my friends. I had to try and gauge where the problem was. It took me long to realize that I was the cause but after I identified where the problem was, I had to look for a way to make the situation better, which was also a task on its own. It was a developed habit hence hard to quit but after a while, the situation changed and I found myself accommodating others.
Further more, life is all about imitation and assimilation. We imitate what people do and finally get to be assimilated to their way of life. How one behaves or grows depends with the people and the environment surrounding the person. This also contributes to the capacity at which one attains maturity. For instance, if you are always around kids, you will always act like them in order to fit in their class but if you spend your time wisely, with intelligent and wise people, they will help you create your future and make you realize your dreams.
In every stage we move to, we are expected to learn new things in order to expand our thinking. After all, attaining maturity is a process.
