growing up

- —:0

(ps i realise this is total mentalism)

That makes me William Gaunt in No Place Like Home, Mark :(

As with so many things, it's a continuum.

all that being said, Sam is pretty much correct, altho, i'd throw in that it comes from dealing with the positive as well as the negative shit.

Jeremy's right too. AFter I posted that I realize learning to handle big things in life that are good always helps you grow.

I also agree about being a "grown-up" and being mature as two different things. I did the whole grown up routine - married, responisbility, owning things, etc. - and then chucked it when I got bored. Now I try to be the least grown-up adult possible. My maturity though is inescapable.

(I suppose being a teacher definitely makes me grown up though. At least in the eyes of hundreds of teenagers. . .)

Seriously, Dr C posted some very wise words on this subject a few months back... wish I could find them.

anytime the latter is actually something you REALLY NEED TO GET ON WITH, you have to turn the former's knob down to like 1 or 2

i've never had any trouble turning it back up, but then i am notoriously bad at finishing things

As for not having experienced pain and loss. . .just wait for it. That's one of the constants of the human experience.

Is it mature to do well handeling pain or to really be hurt by it?

And Tom, everyone experiences pain and loss. Everyone. Different scales maybe but everybody hurts (cue rem).

http://www.brunching.com/images/legoboba.gif

sometimes i feel grown up, sometimes i feel my understanding of 'grown up' is a very un-'grown up' one, and then i don't.

I agree that pain, loss, hurt are constants in life Sam but as you say the degrees of scale are so enormous that they would have to distort the concept of maturity a bit. I've had a very privileged life and very little bad has happened to me, but I'm still more mature than I was 10 years ago despite skipping along my rosy path for all that time.

One thing discussions of maturity tend to slip into is defining maturity as a competitive thing - i.e. I am more or less mature than Ronan, or Sam, or someone in a refugee camp. The only way to assess an individual's maturity surely is against that individual at a different time in life.

heh, the amount of times I say to myself that I don't care abt x thing...Maybe experiencing hurt is something that would stop me from saying it but since I haven't experiencing any pain (been v fortunate) or any kind of 'experience' in my life this 'growing up' thing will not happen.

But still I feel grown up (I mean, give me something to care abt besides my family and what my work/study) bcz I think I am able to do the right thing most of the time.

Did I? Blimey.

If have more to say but will have to log off now. Hometime.

My underlying point is that learning to deal with life well good/bad, is key to maturity. Maturity=growth no? growth requires a change.

it's like when those guys who're your age get into elevator you're on, and they're wearing suits and talking business talk, and you're thinking "haha don't they know that those clothes are for grown-ups?"

something like that.

x-post.

Sir Tom is OTM. One of the toughest things about 'maturity', I think, comes as mental baggage from the childhood/teenage years, a sort of 'The only way my friends/parents/etc will know I love them is because I have to tell them constantly.' (a "Can I be sure that they love me?" sort of thing.) Growing up an affectionate only child, it has taken years for me to break the habit.

Course, no one ever knew I felt (even slightly) insecure, ever. So, I was always held up as a model of maturity. Even from the age of 11.

Learning to allow my friends to feel their pain---and resisting the urge to try and make it all better---goes against instinct, and is still a work in progress.

So, do I think of myself as being a mature person now? Yeah, though I've never felt any different, personally. I HAVE learned to find happiness in even the silliest and smallest of things, though.

I think that how people feel changes so that they can mature, or as a result of maturing.

i have less star wars lego than i do ninja lego 8)

andy

Reading this back it sounds defeatist, but that's not how I feel.

My mum does the telling off for frivolous spending thing ad infinitum.

so, what IS maturity anyway?

My little turtle is now big enough to eat the grown-up turtle food. Milestones in life.

I have been buying the Zoo Med Adult Formula...I always feel worried, because the pellets are really hard and tough and rough! always fear that my little girl is gonna cut up her mouth on them, like cap'n crunch.

Do you feel fully grown up or mature?

yeah. sometimes it makes me sad, but yeah.

Do you feel fully grown up or mature?

Oh fuck no, and I'm not sure I ever will. That's cool though, I think.

dunno do i feel grown up. dont feel like i have any great metamorphasis into adulthood ahead of me tho.

I feel grown up, but I don't know that I want to be mature. I feel like a little kid in grownup clothes most days :)

Wish I could abdicate the role of grownup mostdays.

definitely dont feel "fully grown up"

dunno do i feel grown up. dont feel like i have any great metamorphasis into adulthood ahead of me tho.

― cant believe you sb'd me for that (darraghmac), Saturday, 13 November 2010 02:25 (seven years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wrong btw

do go on

i do all sorts of grownup stuff now, even when ppl arent making me.

whabbout rest of ye.

metamorphosis innit

Caterpillar once butterfly now

Do you feel fully grown up or mature?

After thirty two years of parenthood, including fourteen years of legal guardianship, making profoundly important decisions concerning a totally helpless person with a long list of serious medical diagnoses, and staying married through it all, I definitely feel 'grown up', and, in the main, I feel mature as well.

By now I've been humbled more times than I can recollect and I feel the boundless extent of my weaknesses and ignorance with a sad familiarity. In my experience, there's a deep connection between maturity and self-knowledge, and self-knowledge is rarely the catalyst for either pride or glee. We're mostly overeducated apes.

In the end, you do generally find out what you're good for and it is more than just "nothing". If you are lucky (as I am), you discover you're are good for both loving and being loved. It's about the only thing worth your best effort. (P.S. You still get humbled anyway.)

Beautiful post. Thank you.

Probably once a week on average, I feel a strong compulsion to cram a backpack full of coloring books and Legos and snack cakes and run away and never come back ever. Feels like I still have a little ways to go.

Of course you feel that way pretty often. That you don't run away and never come back is the more telling fact. You've figured out there's nowhere to run to == maturity.

I'm so grown up I'm back in school

In my experience, there's a deep connection between maturity and self-knowledge, and self-knowledge is rarely the catalyst for either pride or glee.

this is very wise and depressing.

Thanks for that post Aimless.

agree. excellent perspective, booming post