She has lived in six different states and held 12 different jobs since beginning her undergraduate degree at Carleton College in 2008. The wanderlust abated somewhat in recent years, as Megan settled in Texas from 2013 to 2016 to finish a master’s degree in geosciences, write a thesis on the future horrors that stem from climate change, and get married. During her free time, you will find Megan sitting on the couch, cheering for her Louisville Cardinals, planning future adventures abroad, and snuggling with her dog, Tiger.
Emotional Maturity: What It Looks Like
This is precisely the experience that is driving much of the underlying anxiety I’m seeing in my practice. So many of us are looking around at the enormous complexity of the problems we face as a society and not seeing an adult anywhere near the rooms in which the most important decisions are made. We see increasingly enormous rewards given to those of us who most entertainingly act out our emotional life; and if the emotions acted out are base and primitive, all the better. Maturation is crucial for individuals to adapt and thrive within their environment, as it equips them with the necessary physical, intellectual, and emotional capacities to navigate life’s challenges. It plays a vital role in shaping an individual’s identity, abilities, and overall development.
Commencement speeches provide wisdom to graduates of all ages. With this passage, we often assume that those donning caps and gowns have it all together as they embark upon higher education or leave for promising careers. She writes often about the intersections between health, wellness, and the science of human behavior. She’s written for The Atlantic, New York Magazine, Teen Vogue, Quartz, The Washington Post, and many more.
Maturation is a complex biological and psychological process through which an individual undergoes a series of progressive changes, both physical and cognitive, that enable them to reach an advanced level of development and function. It’s increasingly common for someone to be diagnosed with a condition such as ADHD or autism as an adult. A diagnosis often brings relief, but it can also come with as many questions as answers.
The Meaning of Maturity
As individuals age, though, they learn more about what type of response a situation calls for. While a teenager may still yell and slam doors when they don’t get their way, they’re unlikely to throw the same type of fit they would have as a child, because (hopefully) they’ve matured since then. Likewise, an adult may respond to an anger-filled situation by walking away and removing themself from the encounter or trying to talk it out. Maturity is the behavioral expression of emotional health and wisdom. It is the capacity to know one’s own emotional experience, to be oriented by this experience to some aspect of the truth, to place this truth within the context of other truths, and finally to act in accordance with one’s values.
The more we’re willing to take charge of our behavior, the more we find connection and true belonging. Look at your life and take full responsibility for both the good and the bad. Exercising this kind of ownership can help you take control of your choices. By letting go of shame, you’re free to take charge of your life and live on your own terms rather than by other people’s expectations. Becoming upset with others and failing to acknowledge our own needs is a sign that you may need to develop your maturity.
He realized for the first time what a prop and resource the deep maturity and scornful strength of his mother had been. Never before have the issues facing so many black women been explored with such unapologetic honesty or such clear-cut maturity. Sometimes when tensions run high, even our esteemed elders show a certain lack of maturity. The court ruled she lacked the maturity to make her own medical decisions. A democracy’s maturity and solidity, however, aafx trading review is measured by its institutions’ capacity to resist these claims of democracy’s destruction.
Learn to identify your emotions
Thinking systems, and working on one’s self where one has that control rather than finger-pointing and insisting others change, which is typically futile and out of one’s ability to change—that’s the work to be done. Aside from physical maturity, which individuals have little to no control over, and intellectual maturity, which is taught in school, maturity develops mostly through interactions with others, or, if you’re a particularly reflective person, by actively changing troublesome behaviors. If you’re concerned about your maturity levels, have had concerns voiced to you, or simply want to develop mature behaviors, take the following advice to heart. Many people in my practice have a difficult time trusting the world because they were raised by immature people.
Emotionally mature individuals approach life by doing as much good as they can and supporting those around them. The Silicon Valley electric car manufacturer has plowed through its adolescence and is showing signs of maturity. These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word ‘maturity.’ Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
In my groups, there are six or seven people who meet weekly for 90 minutes and have ongoing relationships with each other. All kinds of things happen in this space; the relationships run the gamut of what happens between people. How does my behavior bring me closer or further from well-being? Over shakepay review time, maturity is cultivated, since maturity is required if we are to progress in experiencing and promoting wellness. As a topic, maturity is debated in the medical literature since neuroimaging shows that the brain matures well into one’s 20s. The frontal lobe, governing executive functions like working memory, impulse and self-control, planning, and time management, is among the last brain area to mature.1 This occurs typically around age 26.
Critical parts of the brain like the prefrontal cortex — which helps curb risk-taking behavior — don’t fully develop until about the age of 25. This can account for why a lot of teen emotions often seem unpredictable. When we think of someone who’s emotionally mature, we typically picture a person who has a good understanding of who they are. Furthermore, when someone is mature, they have the ability to make good decisions on their own, without being guided to them by a parent or another adult. For another broad example, a toddler might decide that it’s a good idea to chew on crayons, but both teens and adults would never have that thought, because they’ve been taught from a young age that crayons aren’t food. Both ultimately derive from the Latin word mātūrus, meaning “‘ripe,” “timely,” or “early.” The suffix -ity is used to make adjectives into nouns, as in words like purity (meaning “the state of being pure”).
When we see someone we admire handling a setback smoothly, we’re much more likely to model their behavior. Instead of reacting when someone becomes dramatic, try displaying patience and understanding for where they’re coming from. If you’re constantly hanging out with someone demanding your time, for example, setting a boundary is showing you won’t compromise your self-respect. Recognizing how you feel — whether sadness, anger, or embarrassment — can help you understand why you’re reacting the way you are. Learning to see a situation with self-compassion and nuance — where nothing is either black or white — can help you avoid falling into the blame game.
The status of maturity is distinguished by the shift away from reliance on guardianship and the oversight of an adult in decision-making acts. Maturity has different definitions across legal, social, religious, political, sexual, emotional, and intellectual contexts.[4] The age or qualities assigned for each of these contexts are tied to culturally-significant indicators of independence that often vary as a result of social sentiments. The concept of psychological maturity has implications across both legal and social contexts, while a combination of political activism and scientific evidence continue to reshape and qualify its definition. Because of these factors, the notion and definition of maturity and immaturity is somewhat subjective. Maturity is a noun form of mature, which is commonly used as an adjective generally meaning fully developed (as a verb, mature generally means to fully develop). If a person shows or has maturity, they are mature, meaning they act grown-up.
Similarly, Christian churches hold Confirmation as a rite of passage in early adolescence. The rite holds fewer practical responsibilities than the Bar/Bat Mitzvah, but carries ethical and moral consequences. Even if they don’t have all the answers, an emotionally mature individual gives off a sense of “calm amid the storm.” They’re the ones we look to when going through a difficult time because they perform well under stress. An emotionally mature person manages their emotions well even in difficult situations, takes accountability, is okay with being vulnerable, and shows empathy to others.
- Some people would tell you that someone who is mature is someone who has physically reached adulthood or old age.
- To be truly genuine means being relatively emotionally healthy.
- While it’s more than normal to have a crabby day now and then, if you’re caught up in self-blame or finding fault with everyone around you, it’s a sign you could stand to work on your maturity.
- Because of these factors, the notion and definition of maturity and immaturity is somewhat subjective.
- Maturity has different definitions across legal, social, religious, political, sexual, emotional, and intellectual contexts.[4] The age or qualities assigned for each of these contexts are tied to culturally-significant indicators of independence that often vary as a result of social sentiments.
All too often we act out what we are feeling in ways that take us further from our own well-being. Maturity—the alignment of our truth, our wisdom, and our values—is something we can cultivate. A couple of years ago, when my daughter was maybe 5, she called out to me from her bedroom about 15 minutes after I’d put her down. I sighed deeply when I heard her call me; I was tired and just entering the sweet hour of adult time with my wife that marks the end of the day.