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Maturity

Maturity is often seen to be a person’s development of their emotional intellectual spiritual as well as volitional capacity. After a certain age, often from eighteen when one enters adulthood, no one wants to be labelled as a child and we all refer to ourselves or rather want people to refer to us as mature. While most people mature early others may take time. We leave in a period where the young people have a lot of information at their disposal because of technology. This has made them earn so much which could be deemed as not fit for a certain age for example sexual relation. Most people will liken maturity with age which is actually wrong, however, contrary to most thinking I believe maturity is not a matter of age but rather comes with experience.

Experience is the best teacher, a popular saying actually sums up most things about maturity. Through experiences that we go through we are able to learn new things, identify better ways to counter problems and take up lessons that will be vital in the future (Dowden). You can actually meet a 13-year-old girl who is more mature in their thinking as well as action than a 22-year-old young lady. Some people have been brought up in situations that had to make them mature fast enough than their age, an example would be a child whose parents pass away at age 14 and is left to care for two younger siblings. Most often, the firstborn will take up the role and become a parent to this younger sibling. The child is likely to even take up jobs or offer the guidance to the siblings that other children receive from their parents. It’s because of the circumstances presented in our life that we eventually understand how to reason which eventually affects our maturity.

Science has often pointed out an association between age and maturity. This why often people are considered mature at the age of eighteen. Although this is partially true because with age we are exposed to certain things that also affect our maturity, eventually it will narrow down to experience. For example, when one is of age and they are taken to school the experiences they will encounter at school will shape their reasoning which translates to maturity. Maturity is associated with both accountability and responsibility (Dowden). When you have a four year old who can take care of her belongings including books and stationery and another of the same age who seems to be misplacing her books or stationery all the time, one can eventually conclude that the later can be said to be more mature. You will find a young person who knows how to save and account for their money while at the same time you will find a grown man who cannot do the same simply because they may have never been in a position where they had to live according to their means.

I hope to reach out to the society to bring an understanding of what maturity really means as we seem to be misguided. We can never equate maturity with age, it all narrows down to a person accountability and responsibility which are often influenced by experiences. As a society we need to stop basing a person’s reasoning with their age. It is because of this we are often not keen to listen to an advice from a younger person on the basis he is still young. A person may be young but the experiences they have gone through may have shaped them. The source that I except to consult is an Article on the Medium “Age vs Experience: Maturity Obscurity by Regina Dowden.

Works Cited

Dowden, Regina-Lee. “AGE vs EXPERIENCE: Maturity Obscurity.” Medium, The Post-Grad Survival Guide, 24 Apr. 2019, https://medium.com/the-post-grad-survival-guide/age-vs-experience-maturity-obscurity-a0de07e957c4.