Maturity is a reward for persevering. What does it look like? How can we define it? It is the ability to see things in proper perspective. Maturity gives us the vision to establish the proper relativity of our life. It helps us establish the parameters. For example, through maturity we see the proper place of relationship and money. A young man who had gone through three disastrous marriages was counseling a friend going through his first divorce by saying a rather strange thing: "don't let money become the sole issue. Ultimately relationships are more important than the money." This doesn't diminish the importance of money; it creates perspective on its relative importance.
Another perspective of maturity is the balance between responsibilities and rights. Responsibilities have a way of overlapping and forming a bond, while rights always clash and are only maintained legally. Individuals and social groups who focus solely on their rights become paranoid and eventually assume a "means justifies the end" philosophical position. They become so enmeshed in getting their rights that they forget their responsibilities. The Christian faith has never accentuated rights but always responsibilities. This is why it is a healing religion. Growth and maturity necessitate an emphasis on responsibility.
I've had a great deal of experience negotiating with organized labor and as long as each talks about individual rights there is high conflict, but if each can talk about their mutual responsibilities resolution generally occurs.
Maturity allows to face the juxtaposition between the here and now and the hereafter. If I see any one danger sign in our society it is that we are losing our consciousness of God and the eternity. The Puritans were strongly motivated by their sense of God's ultimate judgment. It was so much a part of the Christian faith that the heavenly reward got mockingly referred to as "pie in the sky." However, in my many years of living I have never known a devout Christian come to the end of his life and wish that he had chosen a different faith position. On the other hand, I have known many non-believers who when they came to the end of life said, "I somehow missed the boat. I wish I had it to do over again. " A priest for street people recently remarked, "I've never known a dying man to call for his therapist. " Here is important but the hereafter is critical. Maturity lets us balance the two.
One of the most interesting studies on maturity in executives was done by Harvard over some thirty years. It reported four basic points of maturity:
(1) Ability to verbalize objectively without taking destructive action. It is healthy to verbalize our feelings, particularly to ourselves, as objectively as we would count money. Then it's just as important to decide against destructive action based on those objective feelings. So often the immature will do just the opposite. They will not truthfully verbalize their feelings but then take destructive action. For example, the person who is angered, says, "It doesn't bother me," and then seeks revenge.
(2) The ability to anticipate and develop options to avoid surprises. Good executives always dislike surprises for it forces them into hurried action or disastrous delays.
(3) The attitude of altruism in which they do not expect to get something for nothing. They expect to pay for what they get and they subscribe to the Rotarian theme "he profits most who serves best." I would add the word "mutuality" for no relationship can be healthy that is not mutual.
(4) The freedom to laugh at oneself. I have never known a person without a sense of humor who wasn't basically arrogant. They thought that nothing should happen to them that they couldn't control. Humor can be a healthy reaction to am uncontrollable situation. The pompous fear humor. Humor is a pin in a balloon factory. I have found in my years of executive life that there were many, many times to laugh or have high blood pressure.
Perseverance brings opportunities to reevaluate, reprioritize and reposition. We are rewarded by maturing in perspective and a better understanding of our responsibilities. Maturity doesn't mean getting older --- it means lengthening our emotional wheelbase and taking the bumps of life more smoothly. Riding out the potholes makes us real.
