Maturity? What does it really mean - 'to be/act matured/adult'?

 

This blog is based on my understanding after reading the book "Everything Is Fucked - A Book About Hope" by Mark Manson.

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"Behave like an adult!"

"Why are you acting so immature?"

"Stop being childish. You are an adult. Act like one."

"I thought you were matured than this."

Have you received any of this comments? Have you said these comments to anyone? Also, have you ever said this to yourself? 

I have received comments on both sides of it. I have been called 'a matured guy', 'way matured and thoughtful for my age' - when I was in my early 20s, 'understanding'. Ironically, I have been called 'childish', 'immature', 'irresponsible'. You will be surprised, but I also have been called 'girly' and told to 'MAN UP!'. 

Being on both sides of the maturity line, I had always been confused. I really didn't understand what 'maturity' meant. Trust me when I say this, I have never called anyone 'matured' or 'immature' for this specific reason - I had no clue what it really meant. So I wouldn't obviously use it on anyone. 

I had a feeling, 'maturity' might be subjective and everyone had their own definition of it. Perhaps people expected others to behave in a 'certain way'. Act in that expected way and you are matured or adult for them. Don't act like it and you're immature and acting childish. That's why I rarely cared when people made a comment on me - positive or negative. Since maturity is subjective and based on people's expectations and perception, I wasn't going to act in the way they wanted, right? Well, that's what I believed until now.

And the other thing I was confused (or rather pissed) was when someone says, "You are so childish." 

What do they even mean when they say that?

Few inferences can be made based on that statement.

• I act like a child. 
• I don't act like an adult.
• Acting like a child is a bad thing.
• Acting like an adult is a good thing. 

So based on this, we can infer that whatever characteristics that a child has (playful, curious, energetic, innocent etc.) are wrong to have as an adult? Well,  I would love to be curious and energetic like a child forever. I wish I had 1% of the curiosity and passion right now that I had as a child. 

Maybe people mean to say don't act like little tyrants (children) who cry if they don't get what they want?  

Well, people could mean a lot of different things when they make these comments. So much to indulge and analyze for the tiny brain. 

And then I came across this interesting idea or opinion or philosophy or whatever you call it regarding maturity when I was reading Mark Manson's 'Everything is Fucked'.

Maturity has nothing to do with age. What matters are a person's intentions - not WHAT they do but WHY they do it. 

(Pg 40: Everything is Fucked) 

I am not asking you to agree with whatever he says in his book, but for me, this was something to ponder upon. It really helped me in my understanding. 

Okay! Let's try to dig in. Based on the examples in the book, I am calling this the 'Ice-cream Theory'.

First, let's categorize a human into three groups: child, adolescent and adult.

Here's a situation: You love ice-cream. There's ice-cream in the freezer. Your mom has asked you not to steal and eat the ice-cream. 

Now put yourself as each of the three categories (child, adolescent, adult) and try to imagine what you would do. 

Here's what they would (usually) do in such case.

• The little kid thinks, "Ice-cream is awesome. I love ice-cream. So, I want ice-cream." The kid goes to the freezer, steals the ice-cream, gobbles on it until he/she is content. 
  
  Later, mom finds it. She gets extremely angry and scolds the kid for stealing. 
  
  
• The adolescent thinks, "Ice-cream is awesome. I love ice-cream. But stealing stuff pisses my parents off and I'll get punished." 
  
  So based on some previous experiences, the adolescent decides not to steal so as 'not to piss off the parents' and 'not get punished'.
  
  
• The adult thinks, "Ice-cream is awesome. I love ice-cream. But I know stealing is wrong."
  
  The adult doesn't steal for the simple reason that it is wrong. 

 

This Ice-cream Theory is probably the best analogy by Mark Manson to explain the differences. I simply loved it. If you dwell upon it for a while, I'm pretty sure you'll understand what he is trying to mean from the above statements.

Figure 6.2: Everything is Fucked

From the figure above:

• A child thinks only about his/her own pleasure.
  The child steals the ice cream because it feels good and he/she is oblivious or indifferent to the consequences (parents angry, punishment etc.).
  
  
• An adolescent learns to navigate rules and principles to achieve his/her goals.
  The adolescent doesn't steal because he/she knows it will create worse consequences (parents angry, punishment etc.) in the future, but his/her decision is ultimately a bargain with his/her future self. "I'll forgo some pleasure now to prevent greater future pain."
  
  
• An adult is able to eschew his own pleasure for the sake of his/her principles. 
  The adult doesn't steal for the simple principle that stealing is wrong. And to steal, even if he/she gets away with it, would make him/her feel worse about herself.

My notes...

• A child basically has no principle whatsoever and doesn't care (know) about the consequences of his/her action. He/she just knows what pleases him/her and will want it anyhow.
  
  A child doesn't care about honesty. He/she just wants his/her fucking ice-cream. That's it!
  
  
• An adolescent has principles. But these principles revolve around maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain. Everything he/she does (based on his principles) is a calculated transaction, a bargain made out of fear of the negative consequences. Everything is a means to some pleasurable end.
  
  An adolescent understands honesty. He/she will be honest because it's seen as a trade off. Between not being honest and getting fired from a job, the adolescent will make a calculation and choose being honest. So the adolescent is using honesty as a means to his/her pleasure.
  
  An adolescent will stay that he/she values honesty only because she has learned that saying so produces good results. But when confronted with difficult conversations, he/she will tell white lies, exaggerate the truth and become passive-aggressive.
  
  
• An adult has unconditional principles - that they can't be reached through any other means. They are ends in and of themselves.
  
  An adult understands that honesty is right and good for its own sake. Even if it hurts you today, even if it hurts others, being honest is still the right thing to do. 
  
  An adult will be honest for the simple sake that honesty is more important than her own pleasure or pain.

I hope you got confused. Haha! Go through it again. Reading the second time makes everything clearer (I think).

Here's one more idea from the same book about this. This is more from the happiness and pain of life perspective. It's a whole new chapter in the book. So I am not going into its detail here. To summarize, the books says that our pursuit of happiness is the root cause of our expectations and hope. Everything is fucked up because we try to find happiness by avoiding pain. The pursuit of happiness leads us towards incessant and intolerant desire for something more. And that makes our life miserable. The core idea here is: "Pain is the universal constant of life."

That means, we should not try to avoid pain, rather embrace it, make our pain meaningful. We just need to be able to choose what pain we bring into our life. The pain is always going to be there, so let's rather suffer for the right pains. 

Now, based on this perspective of PAIN and HAPPINESS, let's dig into the child, adolescent, adult thing again.

• Children have a low tolerance for pain because the child's entire ethos revolves around the avoidance of pain. 
  For the child, a failure to avoid pain is a failure to find meaning of purpose. 
  
  Childish values are fragile. The moment that ice-cream is gone, existential crisis sets in.
  
  
• The adolescents has a higher pain threshold because the adolescent understand that pain is often a necessary trade-off to achieve his/her goals - endure pain for some sort of future benefits. 
  "I will suffer through school so I can have a good career. I will deal with my obnoxious boss to get a promotion."
  
  The problem arises when the adolescent feels that he got a bad bargain when the pain exceeds his expectations and the rewards don't live up to the hype. "I sacrificed so much and got so little back! What was the point?"
  
  Adolescent values are more robust because they include the necessity of pain, but they are still susceptible to unexpected and/or tragic events since pain is taken as a bargain for some benefits. If the benefit is not there or not as expected, values break down.
  
  
• The adult has an incredibly high threshold for pain because the adult understands that life, in order to be meaningful, requires pain, that nothing can or necessarily should be controlled or bargained for, that you can simple do the best you can do, regardless of the consequences. 
  
  Truly adult values are antifragile: they benefit from the unexpected. The more fucked up a relationship gets, the more useful honesty becomes. The more terrifying the world is, the more important it is to summon up the courage to face it. The more confusing life becomes, the more valuable it is to adopt humility.

That's a lot of ideas and opinions to process. Honestly, since I came across this, I am still processing. I am trying to relate all these ideas to my life, the decisions I have made so far to understand where I fall.

In my opinion, instead of categorizing yourself if you are still a child-adult or an adolescent or (luckily) an adult, we should embrace the fact that we are in a process of growing up. We need to understand that we all are born a child and where we go from there, how we grow up, how much time it takes is entirely upon us. 

This is for sure going to help me in understanding my values and finding my True North. I hope it helps you too. Or at least, next time some one calls you immature, you have some fancy philosophy to tell. Haha!

Cheers!

Here's what seems like a maturity table from the book to ponder upon. :D 

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/Stoicism/comments/caleo3/maturity_table_from_mark_mansons_latest_book_felt/