One question which arises in various situations is how exactly should we define maturity? What are the things which separate a mature individual from others?
Long gone are the times when age and finances tell us if someone has matured or not. Nowadays, 19 years old are running million dollar companies and 40 years old are living paycheck to paycheck. It turns out that finances and age do not correlate with how mature a person is. We also have plenty of 22 years old millionaires who go bankrupt by 25.
So, what are the factors we should consider as a new benchmark? Is it mental health, or family, or just the character of an individual? What exactly is that which puts a matured individual apart from the crowd?
Psychologically speaking, it is very difficult to draw any conclusion just by observation. There is almost nothing we can deduce about a person’s maturity from outside. A well-behaved individual might go crazy when the ball goes out of his play area, that is, when things go from order to chaos. Similarly, a seemingly brave man might be the first one to run when danger arises.
Dan Ariely, together with his colleagues, conducted some impressive experiments to show the effects of extreme emotions on a person’s behaviour. His detailed studies were published in his book Predictably Irrational but the bottom line is that a person himself can’t predict how he is going to act in extreme situations. Now, if a person himself didn’t know that, what are the chances that someone from the outside might be able to predict that?
If we can’t deduce anything from the outside and most of what we know about ourselves is probably wrong (according to Dan Ariely’s observations), how can we possibly know our level of maturity?
Carl Jung might have something for this question.
Jung has put forward one of the most credible solutions based on his model of the human psyche.
In his own words,
The only way to live a healthy life is to assimilate the Shadow into our personality.
In layman terms, assimilating your shadow means that we just have to be aware of our desires and values, not only which is in front of our mind, but the deep ones too. Because it is our desires and values embedded in shadow which drives our emotions and intuitions.
And this assimilation is what called as maturity.
Now the question arises, how can we know that we are on the right path to attain this maturity?
Below are the five signs which are experienced by the people who are trying to assimilate their shadows into their personality.
1. The war between your emotions and logical decisions starts to disappear.
Most of the decision-making blunder we make is because of the desynchronization between our emotions and logic, whether it’s in the job, relationship, family, etc. The primary reason behind these is that the source of both your emotions and your logical decisions are different.
Your logic arises from the conscious part of your mind, which you accept and acknowledge. But your emotions and intuitions arise from the depth of your psyche, which you probably don’t even aware of.
But when you get mature and start assimilating your shadow to your personality, you will find that these tugs are decreasing. It is because both your emotions and decisions are now coming from the same part of your mind, the new assimilated part.
2. A greater understanding of your potential.
Assimilation also leads to improved knowledge of your own potential, because you are now aware of the part which was kept hidden inside your own mind.
One great example of this is a soldier who had been in a war. If you ever meet such a person, you can feel the difference between him and the rest. You can feel that he knows how to act civilized and smile, but you will also feel that if someone crosses a line, he also knows how to cope with that. He is someone who has assimilated his horrific side into his personality. As a result, he is now more aware of his potential of doing bad things(for the lack of a better term), because this is what he did on the battlefield.
It’s not always the assimilation of negative parts, there are also positive things which comes on the surface together with it. The dragon always comes with gold, and vice-versa.
3. Decrease in procrastination.
It follows from the first point. If someone has incorporated his shadow, he will become aware of his true desires and values, which might be different from the things he previously believed.
Procrastination arises when we try to avoid some task for instant gratification. But as you get matured, it becomes clear to you why something is important and why it needs to be done, and then procrastination will automatically decrease.
4. Stability against outside events.
There are many things which happen in our daily life, and we can’t control a large part of that. It is these situations which makes us anxious because deep down we doubt if we are ready to face it or not.
But once you incorporate your shadow to your personality, you will develop a better understanding of your potential and limitations, then it will become much easier to cope with these events. Because one thing people found out after assimilating their shadow is that they are capable of much more than what they thought.
5. Better sorting of priorities.
Unsurprisingly, if you know and accept your potential and limitations, and you understand your desires and values, you will be able to make transparent decisions. Transparent here doesn’t mean you have to make it transparent to the outside world, but transparent to yourselves.
When most people make a decision, they are not sure about it because one part tells them to do one thing, and other parts want to do something else.
But once you matured, you can make any decision with much more clarity because now you have a better understanding of your priorities.
Final thoughts
As we see, maturity is not about your economic condition or age, neither it is about how you act in your comfort zone.
One true way to know if you are matured or not, or if you are on the right path is to check if
- Your decisions and emotions are becoming one
- You now have a greater understanding of your potential
- Your procrastination is decreasing
- You are now better at handling unexpected situations
- Your priorities are now getting cleared
And the way to attain these results is to assimilate your shadow into your personality.
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Previously published on medium
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Photo credit: by Simon Migaj on Unsplash