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An Essay On Maturity

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Romantic Warrior

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Here's a short essay I wrote today on maturity that I haven't revised too much. I'm eager to hear all comments and criticisms.

Maturity

Maturity. What is maturity? When is one mature? How does one measure maturity? These are questions that are too often neglected in today's society. We often talk about maturity with little understanding of what it is. "Jeremy is very mature for his age." "Sarah is so intelligent, but she can be so immature! She needs to grow up." Although this word is common piece of most everybody's vocabulary, little time is given to truly understanding it. You don't learn maturity in a high school class and its deeper meaning is rarely talked about among friends. Unfortunately, this lack of exposure to the concept of maturity results in a lack of understand of how we can improve ourselves as individuals.

First, we must define maturity and distinguish between different types of maturity. Flipping open the nearest dictionary, one finds that maturity is defined as a "full development." Of course, dictionaries aren't written in the kind of philosophical depth that we'd like, so we must ask the questions ourselves. Full development... of what? This leads us to distinguishing between different kinds of development. In what ways, as human beings, do we develop? Or, put another way, in how many different ways do we mature? Although there are many ways in which we mature, I would like to focus on the two types of maturity that are most important in one's personal development: physical maturity and emotional maturity.

The first type of maturity, the physical, is easiest for us to fully understand. It is a scientific kind of maturity that is visible and quantifiable. For example, I am seventeen. While this literally means that since I was born the earth revolved around the sun roughly seventeen times, it more importantly is an approximated measure of physical maturity. By telling you I'm seventeen, you've most like already assumed that I don't have wrinkles on my face and that chances are I'm in relatively good health. We also measure physical maturity by key milestones in our biological development as human beings. Infancy. Puberty. For the ladies, menopause. As we grow older, our bodies "fully develop" and are most easily measured by these real, visible changes in our bodies. So what does this mean for you? First, it means that you need to reflect upon and understand who you are in relation to your physical development. One cannot build up false expectations and plan on running a marathon in his or her thirties quite as well as he ro she may have ran it in his or her teenage years, nor can a teenage girl expect to understand her body the way a forty year old woman understands hers. More importantly, we must understand physical maturity as a singular element of personal development apart from emotional maturity.

In that case, how is emotional maturity different? Emotional maturity is one's "full development" emotionally. Obvious enough, but how do we understand our emotional development? Unlike physical maturity, emotional maturity is not easily defined. It is not quantifiable. We can't use a science lab to calculate an individual's emotional maturity. Emotions are volatile and difficult to understand. Although everybody views this subject differently, I would like to lay down a few irreducible concepts on the subject... axioms, if you will. First, development occurs through time. Without time, there can be no development, no change. As time passes, we, as humans, experience. We experience a whole host of things: love, hate, victory, tragedy. So, as time passes, we develop by experience. Without experience, we don't develop. From this, I determine that emotional maturity depends first upon experience. Despite this, experience does not necessarily mean we develop. Our experiences can result in detrimental changes that hinder our maturity. Put another way, our experiences can prohibit our emotional development. This means that we as human beings must use some sort of medium to translate these experiences into positive development. This medium is reason. Our rational facilities allow us to see, hear, smell, taste, and feel our environments. Not only that, but our rational facilities also allow us to process this information. The progress of our emotional developments depend on how we process this information. For instance, lets say that Jon's pet cat dies. Although he can react in many ways, we'll just examine two. He can say to himself, "I'm sad my cat died, but I'll move on, raise a new cat, and remember the great times I had with the old one." He could also say, "The cat died. I'll never move past this. Its my fault the cat died. I should have given him fewer treats and more cat food." As you can see, any experience can be used by the mind for personal development, while at the same time the mind can use experiences to hinder emotional development. In this way, over time, we construct principles based on the way we process our experiences. These principles are our personal convictions. "Life will ultimately end, so it must be enjoyed while it lasts." "Life will ultimately end, so nothing is worthwhile anyway." From these truths, I conclude that emotional maturity is the sum of experiences and personal convictions that allow for one's greatest personal potential. How did I conclude that? If maturity is our apex of development, then we as human beings are capable of the greatest happiness, the greatest achievements, and the greatest understanding when we are fully developed. For the reasons stated above, I believe that experience and proper reasoning are necessary for proper maturation. So, again, "Emotionaly maturity is the sum of experiences and personal convictions that allow for one's greatest personal potential."

If that is emotional maturity, how does physical maturity come into play? If emotional maturity and physical maturity sum to an individual's total level of maturity, then I would define maturity as such. "Maturity is the sum of experiences and personal convictions that allow for the greatest personal potential in context of one's physical development." Maturity is our means of making the most of our lives. The more mature we are, the more we can achieve. It is important to understand in context of where we are in our development. The average ten year old child is simply not capable of achieving what the average thirty year old can achieve, nor is that ten year old child capable of dealing with difficult situations in the same way that a thirty year old deals with them. The child has not had the experience nor the kind of personal convictions that an adult does.

So what does it all mean? It means that we must strive to be as mature as possible given our varying situations. It also means that we must reconsider how we teach children to live their lives and how we govern our society. If age is a measure of physical maturity, then is it true that no individual is emotionally mature enough to consume alcohol until he or she is of twenty one years of age? Is a woman mature enough to be a mother simply because she is thirty? Are seniors more mature simply because they are older? Of course, the older one is the more one has experienced, but experience alone, remember, does not directly translate to maturity.

Maturity is too often overlooked and misunderstood. Strength, intelligence, and beauty are far more important in the eyes of society at large. Regardless, it is crucial to understand the importance of maturity... for your own well being.

You can see this essay and some of my poetry here: http://sweetnighter.deviantart.com/

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There is a lot to like in your essay. So, take the following critique in that context. I will focus my comments on aspects I think need further work:

  Maturity. What is maturity? When is one mature? How does one measure maturity? These are questions that are too often neglected in today's society.
I would lose the last sentence, at least until you can provide the reader with background as to why and understanding of "maturity" is important.
We often talk about maturity with little understanding of what it is. "Jeremy is very mature for his age." "Sarah is so intelligent, but she can be so immature! She needs to grow up." Although this word is common piece of most everybody's vocabulary, little time is given to truly understanding it. You don't learn maturity in a high school class and its deeper meaning is rarely talked about among friends. Unfortunately, this lack of exposure to the concept of maturity results in a lack of understand of how we can improve ourselves as individuals.
Good. Though, my personal taste as a reader would be to just "get on with it", without telling me I don't understand "maturity" sufficiently or that I don't learn about it in school.
  First, we must define maturity and distinguish between different types of maturity. Flipping open the nearest dictionary, one finds that maturity is defined as a "full development." Of course, dictionaries aren't written in the kind of philosophical depth that we'd like, so we must ask the questions ourselves. Full development... of what? This leads us to distinguishing between different kinds of development. In what ways, as human beings, do we develop? Or, put another way, in how many different ways do we mature? Although there are many ways in which we mature, I would like to focus on the two types of maturity that are most important in one's personal development: physical maturity and emotional maturity.
I don't think the "flipping of dictionary" etc. adds much, If you simply say that there's physical maturity and emotional maturity, most readers will agree. Going into so much detail is long-winded. Even if someone hjas not thought about "maturity", when they begin to read the essay, the distinction between physical and emotional/intellectual maturity (if stated simply) will be uncontroversial. To argue in favor of the uncontroversial is uninteresting.
  The first type of maturity, the physical, is easiest for us to fully understand. It is a scientific kind of maturity that is visible and quantifiable. For example, I am seventeen. While this literally means that since I was born the earth revolved around the sun roughly seventeen times, it more importantly is an approximated measure of physical maturity. By telling you I'm seventeen, you've most like already assumed that I don't have wrinkles on my face and that chances are I'm in relatively good health. We also measure physical maturity by key milestones in our biological development as human beings. Infancy. Puberty. For the ladies, menopause. As we grow older, our bodies "fully develop" and are most easily measured by these real, visible changes in our bodies. So what does this mean for you? First, it means that you need to reflect upon and understand who you are in relation to your physical development. One cannot build up false expectations and plan on  running a marathon in his or her thirties quite as well as he ro she may have ran it in his or her teenage years, nor can a teenage girl expect to understand her body the way a forty year old woman understands hers. More importantly, we must understand physical maturity as a singular element of personal development apart from emotional maturity.
As I understand it, you really want to focus on "emotional/intellectual" maturity. With that in mind, I think there's too much time being spent here on physical maturity. State it, get it out of the way, and get on with the main focus of the essay. (As a minor aside: "understand her body" is not a good example of physical maturity.)
  In that case, how is emotional maturity different? Emotional maturity is one's "full development" emotionally. Obvious enough, but how do we understand our emotional development? Unlike physical maturity, emotional maturity is not easily defined. It is not quantifiable. We can't use a science lab to calculate an individual's emotional maturity. Emotions are volatile and difficult to understand.  Although everybody views this subject differently, I would like to lay down a few irreducible concepts on the subject... axioms, if you will. First, development occurs through time. Without time, there can be no development, no change. As time passes, we, as humans, experience. We experience a whole host of things: love, hate, victory, tragedy. So, as time passes, we develop by experience. Without experience, we don't develop. From this, I determine that emotional maturity depends first upon experience. Despite this, experience does not necessarily mean we develop. Our experiences can result in detrimental changes that hinder our maturity. Put another way, our experiences can prohibit our emotional development. This means that we as human beings must use some sort of medium to translate these experiences into positive development. This medium is reason. Our rational facilities allow us to see, hear, smell, taste, and feel our environments. Not only that, but our rational facilities also allow us to process this information. The progress of our emotional developments depend on how we process this information. For instance, lets say that Jon's pet cat dies. Although he can react in many ways, we'll just examine two. He can say to himself, "I'm sad my cat died, but I'll move on, raise a new cat, and remember the great times I had with the old one." He could also say, "The cat died. I'll never move past this. Its my fault the cat died. I should have given him fewer treats and more cat food." As you can see, any experience can be used by the mind for personal development, while at the same time the mind can use experiences to hinder emotional development. In this way, over time, we construct principles based on the way we process our experiences. These principles are our personal convictions. "Life will ultimately end, so it must be enjoyed while it lasts." "Life will ultimately end, so nothing is worthwhile anyway." From these truths, I conclude that emotional maturity is the sum of experiences and personal convictions that allow for one's greatest personal potential. How did I conclude that? If maturity is our apex of development, then we as human beings are capable of the greatest happiness, the greatest achievements, and the greatest understanding when we are fully developed. For the reasons stated above, I believe that experience and proper reasoning are necessary for proper maturation. So, again, "Emotionaly maturity is the sum of experiences and personal convictions that allow for one's greatest personal potential."
This paragraph is the crux of the essay. I suggest you break it up into as few more paragraphs that explore the aspects of emotional/intellectual maturity in a bit more detail. Some questions a reader might have: Is such maturity mainly a matter of experience? Would two people who have similar experiences become similarly mature?
  If that is emotional maturity, how does physical maturity come into play? If emotional maturity and physical maturity sum to an individual's total level of maturity, then I would define maturity as such. "Maturity is the sum of experiences and personal convictions that allow for the greatest personal potential in context of one's physical development." Maturity is our means of making the most of our lives. The more mature we are, the more we can achieve. It is important to understand in context of where we are in our development. The average ten year old child is simply not capable of achieving what the average thirty year old can achieve, nor is that ten year old child capable of dealing with difficult situations in the same way that a thirty year old deals with them. The child has not had the experience nor the kind of personal convictions that an adult does.
I'm not sure what this paragraph is trying to acheive. If your focus is on "emotional/intellectual maturity", why bother trying to refine the definition of the more abstract concept of maturity (combining emotional/intellectual with physical)?
  So what does it all mean? It means that we must strive to be as mature as possible given our varying situations. It also means that we must reconsider how we teach children to live their lives and how we govern our society. If age is a measure of physical maturity, then is it true that no individual is emotionally mature enough to consume alcohol until he or she is of twenty one years of age? Is a woman mature enough to be a mother simply because she is thirty? Are seniors more mature simply because they are older? Of course, the older one is the more one has experienced, but experience alone, remember, does not directly translate to maturity.

  Maturity is too often overlooked and misunderstood. Strength, intelligence, and beauty are far more important in the eyes of society at large. Regardless, it is crucial to understand the importance of maturity... for your own well being.

I find this paragraph lacking in theme. What is the central idea? "Some quick final thoughts"?

My overall suggestion would be:

1) Open with a simple explanation of maturity and the two common types: physical and emotional/intellectual. In doing so, avoid complaining that people (the reader too?) just don't get it.

2) Spend much more time and structure on exploring your main area of interest -- which is emotional/intellectual maturity.

All the best

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