What is maturity?
Perhaps more specifically, what does it mean to be mature? I know there are a lot of answers out there, but what is it? What defines maturity? Is it something that has describable characteristics or levels that you can write down on a to-do list?
I'm a young man now. I'm hoping to one-day be married, to start a family. Yet, the constant point of which I hear most often is that I must first be mature as a single guy before I can even begin to entertain the idea of being in a relationship. But how do you get maturity? How can you learn to be mature? Especially when no one can fully describe it in practical terms? How are you or anyone suppose to know when you're "mature enough" to be out on your own? I'm not necessarily talking about the spiritual or mental aspects of maturity. I'm talking about the practical side: Paying taxes, understanding insurance & health care, buying a home or renting an apartment, mortgages, resumes, job interviews, establishing your own household, beginning of a romantic relationship--WERE YOU TAUGHT THESE THINGS WHEN THEY WERE YOUNG!?
I say this out of stress and anxiousness, for I am about to embark on a journey of maturing. In the preparation (soon to be the process) of moving and establishing myself as my own household, I am going to have to learn these things, and hopefully not the hard way. Just like in animal kingdom: time and time again, we hear of creatures who must allow their young to struggle in pain and without support if those young are to be strong and healthy in their adult life. Strange to think that we humans have not fully learn this lesson as a collective species.
My parents have taught me much, and I am grateful for the time they have invested in my upbringing. But for me, the time is soon coming that every person (and their parents) dread. The time in which one must leave his parents and establish himself as his own household. I can only pray, hope, and trust God that I am ready.