One Year

Well I was just looking through all of my facebook pictures from the last year, with my good friend Jess, and then it hit me. I have been at this school for a year now. It has been a whole year since I have arrived in a place completely different from my normal social region. The thing that I have never actually revealed to anyone, even my parents, was that this whole change of atmosphere was, actually, a social experiment. The experiment? Would I be able to survive, or adapt, to a sudden, and complete, change of environment? The results? Well, if you care to continue reading I will explain them.

One thing I have found buried deep within the human cognitive thought is that no one enjoys change. Sure, you can say you do, but give it time. You will eventually long for a stable environment, a routine, a norm that controls your life, makes it simple and contained. Well that is good and all, but it does you no real justice. Why? The only way for a human to truly understand life and grow is to actually experience it. You must put yourself into situations that will test your mind or body. This experiment did just that. I put myself in a situation that would cause me to reconsider everything I believed in, trusted in, or had faith in. That is what the true, hidden, meaning of maturing is, testing yourself.

When I was a child I lived a very sheltered and simple life. Yet, at the same time, I thought I was one of the more mature individuals in my age group. Was I? Looking back I do not believe I was. Which makes me laugh at the thought these days simply because back then even adults said I was mature for my age. Lies. Half truths. Propaganda that simply fed my urge to feel different from my peers. I certainly was not mature for my age, I had not experienced life at all. I may have thought I had, but I was no where near mature. It was only when I was plucked from the pot my parents had placed me in, cared for me in, and thrown myself out into the real world garden did I understand what it meant to be mature. Does this meant that I believe I currently am mature and an adult? Negative, not even close.

People have a hard time dividing the thoughts of maturity and being an adult, they do not go hand in hand. Being an adult is simple, you just wait until your physical body has aged to the point society claims you are an adult. Easy. Maturity? Not so simple. Maturity never ends, it will continue until the day you are dead in the ground. You are constantly going through experiences and thus always have the potential to mature your ideals, or thoughts, further. Our society likes to tell the young that maturity takes place between the ages of ten and twenty, wrong. It never ends. Every decision we make and every moral choice we make determines our maturity. Well that's it for now, I might write more about this tonight. Take care!