I have always failed to understand what growing older actually means. Is it learning to be selfish; sacrificing your pride of doing what is right to doing what the situation demands. Or is it keeping your emotions bottled up because the society dictates that it is the more "mature" thing to do? Or is it learning to be unselfish and make compromises? Or is it learning to understand a situation and people's ulterior and sinister motives that hide beneath a facade of sociable niceties? Or is it all of the above? Or maybe you have some scaling factor that you apply to each of the above and there is a cut-off threshold? Maybe being older is knowing the answer to the last question.
No. I am not mature enough to handle my feelings or emotions. When I am sad or hurt by something, I bottle it up and kind of swallow it with a bitter pill. And sometimes I end up reacting violently in the heat of the moment. The latter happens more often with situations where I am incited. I have let gone opportunities that might have changed my life because I felt that I will be betraying the trust reposed in me by someone else.
Sometimes I feel envious, selfish. They say its wrong to do that. But I can't stop feeling that. There are people whose behavior reflects what they are feeling quite openly. Then there are people whose faces betray no sense of ill feeling. I sometimes wonder don't they feel it? Or that I am being too vain? I like to pretend I am really nice person and so I don't bother asking them, lest they think ill of me! Some great people have often told to live your life to the fullest, you don't need to worry about what others think. I don't agree with the same.
I believe that we humans have been exceedingly successful as a species merely due to intelligence. But then dolphins are considered equally exceptional intelligent creatures. But maybe we are slightly more intelligent with respect to the fact that we can be exceedingly selfish. We humans have been successful because we have learned to work in groups. But so do a lot of animals. What sets us apart, from the rest, is that we have learned to be selfish; we ditch the our own groups when the situation demands it. One example, which is a really poor one, I can think about is of successful business who started working in some organization, learned the tools of the trade, showed a middle finger to the manager, refined the learned tools of trade and became even more successful. No, I don't mean to undermine the amount of effort it takes to be a successful entrepreneur. But what I wish to imply is that it all started with a bit of selfishness. Undying loyalty never gets you anywhere. (But I detest people who are not faithful to their better halves and indulge in treachery and betrayal. I will always detest them. Call me immature but this is a moral line I draw and I shall always be firm on this point)
I often wonder is it morally right to be mature grown up person? Because it calls for things that the Holy Bible or any religious text terms as "sins". They say always be morally right. Then I read about Charles Darwin's "Survival of the Fittest"
I am convinced that I don't understand life. If I even start to comprehend life, I will be lost in all its intricacies and debates which are best left to academic halls. I have been to several debates in my life, and was a skillful debater not too long back, and I have realized, to my dismay, that debates never solve anything. Yes, you get a broader view of the world. You are "enlightened". But it does not solve anything.
Maybe the entire point of life is understanding that everything does not have an answer. Accepting that everything that you do will not hurt your conscience. They should not have any solution manual to the problems at the end of the chapter. Because students need to realize that every solving every problem does not guarantee that their solution is right as is the case with life!