On Maturity Of Character

Friend-Of-This-Blog (FOTB) Leigh from Five Acres and a Dream had a comment on yesterday's post that is worth a meditation of its own: "I have no idea if God is directing you or trying to mature your character".

Sometimes a single comment hits home.

"Maturity (mə-tyoo͝r′ĭ-tē):  The state or quality of being mature"

"Mature:  (mə-tyoo͝r):    Having reached natural growth or development; Having or showing characteristics, such as patience and prudence, considered typical of well-balanced adulthood".

I have always struggled with maturity.  I was in some ways "immature" well into my twenties (a life of fantasy novels, role playing games, high school band, and drama will do that for you).  In some ways this served me well as I was (and am still able) to find an element of fun in everything; it served me less well in that decisions and plans that had to be made were pushed off until later, sometimes much later (like a career path, for example).

The single biggest moment I can remember this was discussed was early in my biopharmaceutical/medical device career, when my manager - an old hippie that I greatly respected - made the comment "I am in no position to talk about conforming, but as an FYI, it will be hard for management to take you serious for promotion if the image they see of you is one of you jumping up and down in front of the window in the facility, waving."

Yup.  That was me circa 1998.

I tried over the years to take his - and others - advice on the matter.  Tried to tone down the excess, tried to "be" mature.  Funny thing about that, at least in the then-world:  it was never something that was actively defined or discussed.  It was simply a "thing" that one was, a rite of passage that was self-evident to every one but me.

My impression of maturity then, and even now to some point, is that a lot of it is giving up impulsiveness - which others might describe a fun.

That makes rational sense of course - after all, the longer the live the more you have invested in a life and the less one can afford to lose the capital - physical, mental, spiritual, financial, reputational - that one has built up.  And some of those are simply either good rules or physical facts:  one cannot drink to excess or eat to overflowing or spend without thinking or jump off the edge for a marginally deep pool like one used to for various reasons.  All sensible things.

And yet, as these layers have peeled away like milestones, nothing has flowed in to replace them.

A simple example:  Thursday night I went to dinner with my sister and The Outdoorsman as we often do when I am in town at a local brew pub.  We ordered a drink as we also do (mine was a seasonal stout aged in a whiskey barrel).

I could barely finish it with my dinner. And even then, with a full stomach only that one drink, I still felt the impact in my sleep.

Again, a silly and simple example and probably a good one for me:  although I have not shown alcoholic tendencies I tend to consume quickly with the requisite outcome and some of my greatest personal failures have been while a little over the limit. So in that sense, this is "finally" a move for the better.  At the same time, the prospect of limiting my beverage options even more sounds, well, less exciting.  One can only drink so much iced tea.

It is as if the core of outer activities gets stripped away to pierce into the inner core, which then has to be worked on in turn.  Given that the outer core only seems ever to be "giving things up" (even things that should be given up), it initially does not give me enthusiasm for the next part of the process.

Maybe it is my own experience - the "mature" people I have met too often seem to have a blandness of character about them, a sort of superficial similarity of fitting in to the world in a way that leaves me flat.  They have the look, the same tastes, the same thoughts, the same lack of fun except in what only ever seems to be socially "acceptable" ways.

But to Leigh's point, maybe this maturing internally is part of the whole process right now - not the sort I reference above, the bland sort of adulthood that young adults rebel against simply because it is as unattractive as it seems, but rather the actual process of become a mature adult that people want to be like.

I can write on the process and it all makes sense when I see it. Living it, however, is something entirely different.