Age Does Not Mean Maturity

[Helloitzapartaih]

Amen.

Let me start by saying , my take about reality has offended quite a few people. And i get this a lot even in real life 'you are only 20 you dont know anything about life'.

It isn't a 'who is the most mature one' competition , but if you knew anything about my life you wouldn't even understand. I can assure you that. Why? Because i have lived through some things that are really hard to explain , even to older people. People often are confused when i explain some of the things i lived through , 'how did you even make it in life so far?' . I even had people end our friendship just because my problems to them seemed ' too complicated and different'.

Let me go on to explain why , yes age does have a factor in experience and maturity , but it isn't the only factor and just because a younger person says something about life doesn't mean they are wrong just because of their age.

1. Immature adults are more common than you think

I mean my god , and they become parents even , leaders , and people you see a lot actually . I have met a shit ton of older adults who have no clue what went wrong with their lives and what things they did wrong to end up in such a shitty life situation .

I have met adults who still had very juvenile ways of thinking , and others who became shitty and angry people because of how their life turned out.

Some adults haven't even had enough life experiences or even if they did , they didn't use critical thinking and they didn't learn from their situation.

While i have met people as young as 10 years old who shocked me , that someone as young as that knows so much about life when they are that young.

While i did meet adults who had a lot of good advice , i won't lie their age and them living for a longer time helped them , yes. But just because something is more common , doesn't make it's opposite false.

2. You can experience a lot in life in a few years more than you would in 30 years

I can't explain this in the general sense , i would just be telling it from my perspective .

But imagine in one year , your wife and kids died , your mother died , your friend has left you , you had 3 car crashes in the span of 2 month , you were fired from your job and can't find a new one , you are depressed and have no clue what to do. But you keep on pushing through the pain and you become a mentally stronger person if you never give up during this time , no matter how much you want to.

However say in the span of 30 years of your life , you had no issues , you didn't have that many problems , your life was stable , and even during the times something good or bad happened that you could've learned from , you didn't .

Now before someone gets all in the example and focuses too much on the detail instead of the general idea , don't be a dumbass and take the general idea out of this , please and thank you.

MY POINT IS that a person who is 23 could be way more mature and lived through a lot more than a person who is , say , 43 years old. I am just saying there is an exception to every rule and it is quite a backwards thinking to say 'you are only *insert young age here* you don't know shit about life'.

3. A lot of people refuse to see life the way it is

And those kinds of people usually always end up immature and regretting life and are filled with negativity (uhm like a lot of the randomly angry people on here). If they realize what their fault was it is always too late.

This has very little to do with age. Yes , as your grow older you mature more , but accepting life and dealing with shit just depends on who you are as a person and when you accept those things could be as early as 17 , or as late as 57. Not all adults have their shit figured out .

I am not saying age and maturity aren't related , i am just saying stop keeping your way of thinking in just one direction and think that it IS POSSIBLE for someone young to know more about life than someone who is older.

I am not saying i have it all figured out , i am just saying people dismissing my opinions just because i am young is stupid.

The weird thing is , people tell you younger people need to 'grow up' and 'stop being stupid' 'be mature'. Yet when you try to have a say in things , they tell you that you are too young to understand.

[dantetheexplorer]

Our society loves talking about "maturity" as though it's a single concept. But when you spend time observing people, you'll find that there are many different types of maturity.

Maturity isn't just one single trait or ability that lies on a spectrum. That is a very simplistic way of thinking about maturity.

Maturity can include lots of different skills:
- Reasoning through ideas
- Coping with powerful emotions
- Understanding how others see us
- Being in touch with our sexual needs
Etc. etc.

Here's a better way to view maturity:
Most people improve in the above skills as they grow, but not all at once, and not at the same rate.

A big mistake that adults can often make is when they look at a young person's skills in one area, and judge their whole "maturity" level based on that one area.

For example:
They're unable to contain an emotional outburst? We judge them as immature, and go on to treat them like a child that needs managing.

Skilled at reading and responding to complex social situations? OMG - this kid is SO MATURE and then we immediately treat them like an adult who can bear the full burden of decision-making and self-protection.

Young people don't need these two extremes. What they need are adults who can assist them in navigating the complications of having a brain that is still learning, still different from an adult's - a brain that is leaping ahead in some areas but still standing still in others.

What we as a society absolutely don't need are adults who use these young people's advanced skills in one areas as an excuse to saddle them with the the burdens of adulthood.

That's because adolescent brains are different from adult brains – which is why we have things like age-of-consent laws.

Research has shown that it is only in early adolescence that the risk-taking and sensation-seeking parts of the brain really start kicking into gear. This is the start of the journey toward developing into independent adults. Unfortunately, the ability to think through long-term consequences and deny our impulses when we know they’re a bad idea takes a while to catch up. In fact, most people’s brains don’t fully develop with these skills until our mid-20s.

There may be people who have a fully functioning adult brain before they hit their 20s. But they would be the outliers. Most of us make more mistakes in our youth than we do when we're adults. That's not something to be ashamed of. We learn from our mistakes. Mistakes make us better.

[Vyxzuw]

True, however a persons brain doesn't fully mature until about 25.
That means that while someone can experience more than someone who is older, that doesn't mean they are emotionally capable of dealing with it.

As an extreme, a child that experience horrible things doesn't make them mature.

However, your point that people shouldn't dismiss opinions based on someone's age is important. The thing is that someone who is young can also be well read on opinions on those with more experience.

So the opinion might not even originate from them, and to dismiss it out of hand is usually an excuse to not face reality.

[WeirdCinderella]

I can completely relate to your my take. Since about my 14 yo, I've never felt like other people my age. I wouldn't be able to act like them. From 15-16 yo, I started being on social media and I would meet people. But every time I'd find an interesting person, she would be older and when the person knew my age, she would feel weird and stuffs and I'd feel ashamed.
From 18 yo, it got better. People would talk to me without problem knowing I'm major. Which is a bit weird cause nothing changed between the 28th of may when I was 17 and the 29th of may when I turned 18

[GuiltyGuinness]

Great take, you are spot on. Experience is wisdom, not age. I am sometimes not very mature in the way I handle things, and can very negative angry about a situation that happened, but again that's my mental health playing role in that. When I feel good, then i think very positively, and nothing much gets me down, except not achieving something that I want.

I really can be a baby at times, I hate that about myself. Keep up the good work young lady, you have some true wisdom, I am bloody impressed. When I was 20 years, I had wisdom of a 10 year old. Wow I wish I was you at 20, I would be achieving so many great things.

I have only just started growing up in the last 5 years lol. More to do.

[Anonymous]

True. I see a lot of people under 40 that are still acting as though they are in their early 20s. Parents are smothering their kids now and never leave them alone to let them develop and mature. Scientists are releasing studies on this right now.

[iamnotkj]

Thankyou so much for sharing. I will just say
"Looking back a yea r from n ow I won t evcen recognize myself I will becom e the legend which i was born to be"

[HungLikeAHorsefly]

I'm in my 40's and you can tell by my username that I'm very mature

[GreatnessBack]

True, people can mature at different times, but wisdom does come with age.
People are young adults between 18-25, after that, that's when they hit ADULThood.
Even, their thinking even changes at that time.

[Gedaria]

Yes I worked with some guys and the way they spoke they sounded like 15year olds instead of 30 something. Listening to them made me so angry. Specially when they were on about females !!!

[Razal]

Nice Take, pretty accurate

[Nik1hil]

Than up vote it

[Anonymous]

That's why all women are immature

[ChocolateCheesecake]

Good

[YourSweetLifeSaver]

Agreed

[David2501]

yah! this is right

[Secretgardenblood]

Good take.