Maturity Is Only For The Mature

I was talking to some friends this past week that are in their early teens. We hit upon the topic of siblings squabbles, which are as plentiful as you would expect. Somebody does one selfish thing, the other sibling returns the favour, a grudge is formed and the cycle renews. Everyone involved says that they other person is wrong and defends their own actions. "Hey, they started it!"

That's par for the course. The funniest thing I heard, though, was the younger ones blaming the older ones because they should know better. They older ones are, y'know, older and they should be more mature about the whole thing. The younger ones insist that they are mature enough to see that the other person isn't mature, but they are not mature enough to change their own actions and stop this circle of fighting. That kind of logic just struck me as hilarious, though my friends didn't find it to be quite as amusing.

Seems to me that anyone that recognizes this pattern should be able to put an end to it. Seems to me that anyone in their mid-teens should be old enough to take responsibility for their own actions and attitude, right? Maybe it's not as simple as that...

As for those of us in our late twenties and early thirties, you might think that we had a better chance of figuring this stuff out. We've moved out of our parents' homes, we're independant, we have careers, we have families of our own, etc. We should be good and smart by now, eh?

Case in point, I was chatting a few weeks ago with someone that is in the medical field. After working day in and day out with people in various areas of the hospital, they had encountered a number of people with psychological issues of all kinds. Granted, many of these cases were more extreme ones but the anguish and pain that these people had was rather jarring to this medical professional.

My friend decided at one point to take stock of their own life. They realized that their deeply-rooted bitterness and unforgiveness really didn't matter so much in the larger scheme of things. They realized that holding onto that kind of pain was just letting those experiences kill them slowly, one day at a time. At worst, they would end up like the people in the hospital. At best, they would be stressed and have fractured relationships for the rest of their lives whenever someone touched that old nerve.

And so my friend decided to do something about it. Deal with it, forgive people, work it out and then move on. Stop allowing the past to control the present and move on with a healthy life and a new perspective.

We're humans really hate change, don't we? Once we get a hold of something, good or bad, we'll keep a tight grip on it come hell or high water. Even if we see the pain that our actions cause, we'll keep on doing it. Even if we know there's a better way to relate to someone, we'll stick with our old habits. Even if we know it's immature and hurtful and mean, we'll defend ourselves until the end.

Young or old, Christian or otherwise, single or married, we can all get trapped here. Even so, the truth is that we can have freedom from this stuff. It just takes some strong motivation to get us there sometimes. It might require an up-close-and-personal look into people's personal lives, like my friend at the hospital. It might require some time away from a given family member, just to avoid the quarrels and clear our heads. It might require a serious family situation that forces us to get past the petty problems.

Hey, we can get there, to this place of healthy relationships and a deepened maturity. A lot of us prefer to learn that lesson the hard way but it's possible to listen and figure this out without burning every bridge behind us. We can all find this type of wisdom and understanding. Maturity is not only for the old people, for the experienced folks, for the parents who have seen it all. Each of us can develop and grow now, no matter what our age is or what our circumstances are. A healthy life and healthy relationships can be ours.