HumanityVirtues
Maturity
quick ideas about maturity. How to acquire it? Qualities proper to maturity. Does maturity depend on age? Maturity and love.
EspañolA. How is maturity achieved?
1. What is maturity?
It is a quality of the person that expresses a high human perfection.
2. How is that human perfection achieved?
Through the repetition of good actions. With this reiteration, good habits — human virtues — are acquired, which provide ease and naturalness in acting correctly: maturity.
3. What habits or virtues are most noteworthy in maturity?
In human perfection all virtues are important and none should be lacking. For example:
- Fortitude, resilience, patience...: if there is maturity, difficulties are borne with composure.
- Temperance, chastity, sobriety...: the mature person knows how to master their own body and is not a slave to their whims.
- Prudence, reflection, counsel...: perhaps these qualities are what is most understood by maturity. This is correct, provided that prudence is not indecision or selfishness.
- Sincerity, realism, responsibility...: maturity includes a responsible exercise of freedom, acknowledging and repairing errors and their consequences.
- Charity, generosity...: a mature person desires to serve others and flees from selfishness.
- Constancy, perseverance, industriousness...
4. How to acquire those virtues more easily?
With company. Seek the friendship of virtuous persons and the help of God. Some effort is unavoidable, but the companionship of God and others makes things easier.
5. Where to begin?
Each person should pay more attention to one virtue or another, taking into account what they are advised. In general, to grow in maturity two things can be recommended — summarizing greatly:
- Strive at serious, responsible, constant, well-done work. A hardworking person exercises many virtues and matures sooner.
- Go to confession often. Apparently this has no connection with maturity. However, it helps greatly for two reasons: a) Confession is an exercise in sincerity, realism, and responsibility. One acknowledges one's errors and asks for forgiveness. b) Maturity is reached by repeating good actions; on the contrary, each sin is an act in the opposite direction that inclines the will toward evil. Confession erases sins, re-orders the will, and provides graces from God to continue advancing in the right direction. Thus it perfects any virtue.
6. Is maturity the same as holiness?
Normally maturity is understood only as natural human perfection, while holiness is equivalent to human and supernatural maturity. Holiness is perfection in human and supernatural virtues by imitating Christ, perfect God and perfect man.
B. Maturity and age
1. Does maturity depend on age?
A little, since excessively young people have not had time to consolidate those good habits or virtues. However, what is decisive is not age but the continuous effort to lead an exemplary life.
2. Is maturity possible in children?
One can speak of childhood maturity when children exercise the virtues proper to maturity in the manner appropriate to their age. For example, such a child:
- will play a great deal, but will also fulfill their tasks responsibly.
- will like sweets, but will not be capricious.
- will make mistakes, but will know how to acknowledge them.
- will like to help and serve others, although their contribution is limited.
3. Is there always maturity in older people?
Older people have reached physical, biological maturity; but this maturity is not the main one: there are irresponsible, selfish, imprudent adults, lacking sobriety and resilience, etc., and in these cases it cannot be said that they possess the human perfection proper to maturity. Certainly there are also older people whose virtues far surpass their small defects.
4. And maturity in adolescence?
Obviously if in childhood one can speak of a certain maturity, even more so in adolescence. And conversely, if there are immature adults, there are also immature adolescents. In general, there will be maturity in adolescence when the young person exercises the virtues proper to maturity in the manner appropriate to their age. On the contrary, the typical immaturity of these ages consists in claiming adult rights in what one is still young, and acting childishly where one is already grown.
5. Examples of immaturity in adolescence?
In the aspect of thinking one is older where one is not yet, there are several examples that reflect the so-called "awkward age":
- Rebellion and lack of respect toward parents and teachers, claiming independence as if one did not need them.
- Demanding rights and freedoms, when one still lacks the responsibility to fulfill one's own duties.
In the aspect of childish behavior, immaturity can be seen in:
- The excessive eagerness for entertainment, when the age of play has ended and play must gradually give way to responsible work.
- The pretension of achieving things without effort, as happens with children.
6. Why is confronting adults a sign of immaturity?
Authentic maturity does not need rebellions, nor lack of respect, nor does it demand more freedom. An older person does not need these things to feel grown up; and those around them recognize their maturity without such behaviors.
7. Examples of maturity in adolescence?
Although their contributions to society are still limited, the maturity of an adolescent shows when:
- They are hardworking and responsible with their duties.
- They are helpful and interested in helping others.
- They are constant in their efforts.
- They listen to and are grateful for advice.
C. Maturity in love
1. Is a degree of maturity necessary for loving?
To love is to desire good for another. One loves someone who desires their good. True love requires that selfishness be reduced, and this is a clear characteristic of maturity.
2. Does divorce have to do with maturity?
3. Is there a quick way to grow in maturity?
Maturity is achieved more quickly by enduring sufferings. For this reason, the same marital problems, when overcome, make love improve and become purified of much selfishness.
4. Does the use of sex influence maturity?