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I was/am the oldest of three so I was mature when it came to be feeling responsible for them but immature because I used to play with them and act like them. I am very kind, kind to a fault, probably. That's how I was brought up. Not too sure what we mean here by maturing.
My values have never changed and if I have matured, it's mostly been in the past twenty years or so. I am realizing that my straightforward, honest behavior was not always the most mature way to act because it hurt people. Sheesh, when my late MIL would ask if I liked someone she had bought, I should have lied and told her it was beautiful. That would just have been a harmless white lie. What was wrong with me?!
Just before my mother died, she was going through old photographs and showed me a big photo of her most beautiful, glamorous sister, all dressed up in an evening gown and autographed (she sang with a band.) My mother said, "Wasn't X beautiful. Shame she never had kids, no one will want this picture." But I was still an immature idiot. I should have said that I would treasure the pictures of her. Instead, those photos got thrown away and my mother was probably sad about that.
It is childish to pretend to be like a perfect person who never tells a lie. It is more mature to weigh your choices and consider the other person's feelings even if you have to stretch the truth. Diplomatic, I am finally mature enough to be somewhat diplomatic and tactful.
I don’t know if the OP is posting about maturation or intelligence. I know that I am not more intelligent, but I am smarter.
I have changed, mostly for the better, IMO. I think I have matured. I am less volatile and (amazingly) continually more mellow. I think I have surprised DH in this. Recently, I said I had a plan and we were gonna do it because it needed to be done, so “let’s get going.” He said “Now you sound like your old self. I like it!”
I still procrastinate, get lazy, feel anxiety and dread, and need my space. But many of the sharp feelings I have been plagued with have mellowed.
And I am much better at understanding others than I used to be.
As I said before, “I know I am not more intelligent, but I am smarter.
At age 19 I thought I knew a lot, but I really didn't. I did not have any long term plan on what to do, did not have a family home to live in, did not have money to go to college, and did not know what to study even if I had the money for college.
In early 1974 when I was 19, right after the Vietnam war ended, almost all the draftees had been discharged, and the Army needed lots of 18 and 19 year olds to fill up the ranks. I enlisted in the Army for 4 years, and spent all my service time in Germany after the initial training. My drill instructor knocked some sense into me and pointed me in the right direction, and everything else has gone OK since then.
I have a friend in his late 50s who I think is immature. He's long divorced but flits from woman to woman, usually lining up the next victim before he's even broken up with the current one. Despite making good money, he shares an apartment with his early 20s daughter and a friend of hers. He goes all-out for Halloween every year. His costumes, admittedly, are very creative but the amount of time he spends thinking of every detail (even details no one would notice) is crazy. He dances in the Halloween Thriller flash-mob every year. He spends a lot of time at the comic book store and goes to Comic-Con every year (dressed in costume, of course). He also works out, runs and bowls, but to me, he just reminds me of a big kid. I've just never seen any adult, much less almost 60, have interests that, to me, seem kind of silly and immature. But hey, to each his own. At least he's having fun!
I don't know what "matured" means, really, but I don't think I have done it.
I am basically the same person as I was when I was 19, except more healed (and more damaged, simultaneously!), and "wiser" (I learned how to do some stuff). But basically, I am not more intelligent, or that much different. How about you?
Yes, same here. I have grown up and calmed down. I realized quite a few years ago that while you may always be the same person you have always been at the core, that doesn't mean you can't evolve certain traits and point of view.
Yes, I have, but only after I retired at 73 did my body and mind begin to tell me that I needed to accept things as they are, move on, and enjoy what's left.
At age 19 my future looked pretty bleak (to me). One year out of high school, I could barely afford the local community college, living at home, had no car, and Vietnam was breathing down my neck. That was the "summer of love". The next five years changed just about everything. I don't think that was an uncommon experience at that time and at that age. I know a few people (you probably do too) who are stuck in high school (or adolescence) fifty years on and never really adapted to life and maturity.
This is interesting to me. My kids used to say "I have to make my own mistakes," and I would think "why do you want to make mistakes?" I have always tried to avoid making mistakes (but of course, have made a ton, as any human would - I just don't expect to keep making them).
I get what you're saying. When I say "mistakes", I mean decisions that I made for reasons that weren't good ones (rather than decisions that I made because that was what truly seemed to me to be the best choice at that particular time.) For example, to me a mistake would be to either go into or stay in a relationship with someone not because I loved them but instead for self-esteem or financial reasons or out of fear of being alone. Or going along with something someone else wants, or wants you to do, in order to stay in their good graces (or to avoid blowback) even though you feel guilty about it at the time, especially if going along with what one person wants ends up being unfair or hurtful to someone else.
When your skills are connected with high stakes (eg, when people's lives depend upon your skills), acquisition and polishing of skills does start to fall under the banner of "wisdom", believe me :-)... when 1/32 of an inch of difference in placement of something in a human body makes difference between the person later living as an accomplished person or a vegetable, the level of skill becomes the level of wisdom.
I agree with that. One can say, too, that the expert application of a skill such as you describe must necessarily involve the wisdom of not only knowing how to do something but also when and where to do it.
Or to expand on the old saying: "Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit; skill is being able to grow a healthy tomato; wisdom is not putting the tomato into a fruit salad." ;-)
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