Reflection
In our reading, we can find all sorts of lists that outline the qualities of adulthood. They tell us to manage our emotions, to act with greater self-confidence, to enhance our personal development and not to exploit or harm other people. There is one important deficiency. Most ignore the context in which we live, the fact that we are part of the rest of creation. They continue to view humans through the lens of their superiority over the rest of life. On reflection, it seems that to be a fully adult human person one also needs to embrace the entire web of life, the cosmic and spiritual dynamics that shape our existence.. Without these, true human maturing seems to lack its deepest dimension. Only little children see themselves as the center of their universe.
Prayer
That all may be one.
Action
How do I define adulthood? To which elements of my definition do I relate most comfortably? Do I see anything missing?
Suggested Reading
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, thought like a child, and reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I no longer used childish ways.
1Cor 13:11
No one can grow if he does not accept his smallness.
Pope Francis
A state of mind that sees God in everything is evidence of growth in grace and a thankful heart.
Charles G. Finney
To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.
Henri Bergson
A human being is part of a whole, called by us the Universe, a part limited in time and space. He/she experience themselves, their thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
Albert Einstein
May my soul bloom in love for all existence.
Rudolf Steiner
Be not afraid of growing slowly; be afraid only of standing still.
Chinese Proverb
Your life does not get better by chance; it gets better by change.
Jim Rohn
Youth ends when egotism does; maturity begins when one lives for others.
Hermann Hesse
Maturity is when your world opens up and you realize that you are not the center of it.
M.J. Croan