maturity
Maturity has always been weird to me. When I was younger I was frustrated that people would call me immature as I ran around and jumped on things. Yes that’s “immature”, but I prided myself on being kind and respectful to others. When people called my silly behavior immature, it felt like they were discounting my maturity in being kind, respectful, etc.
In my opinion, maturity is a set of loosely correlated characteristics.
- The kinds of humor and media you enjoy, the kinds of jokes you make
- Your ability to modify aforementioned humor depending on the people you are around
- Your ability to understand and empathize with others
- Your ability to understand yourself, both as an individual and as a member of a community
Now I do believe that these characteristics are correlated. If you don’t like fart jokes, but notice someone always making fart jokes around you, they’ve arguably failed at (1), but more importantly they’ve failed at (2) since they didn’t recognize your discomfort. That cascades into a failure of (3) and (4).
That said, I do think that these correlate less than people want them to. In the above example someone made jokes around you. What if you found out someone watched crude humor in their free time? I don’t think that should change the way you look at them at all; I’ve met some people who read high brow literature and were total assholes, and some people who watch children’s cartoons and are amongst the most understanding people.
Tags: emotional intelligence#, stoicism, adulting, growth mindset#
