“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.” – 1 Corinthians 13:11
Maya Angelou put it succinctly when she said, “Most people don’t grow up. Most people age. They find parking spaces, honour their credit cards, get married, have children, and call that maturity. What that is, is aging.”
There is a clear difference between growing and aging. One who proceeds through life’s experiences and uses them to constantly add authenticity and integrity to his cognizance grows. Taking every experience of life as a lesson in living these truths expands the consciousness.
One who is always tired at the end of all of life’s lessons is only aging. When there is no will to stretch out as far as possible, a person is operating from engraved memories. For example, when someone is irrationally scared of riding a bike. He doesn’t allow himself to even consider the possibility that it is a perfectly safe act, let alone stretch out to understand the root cause of the fear and eliminate it. This is inauthenticity, and it is the reason for any kind of fear. Inauthenticity is the unwillingness to stretch to your peak potential in the given moment of life.
How often do you hear and see an adult talking and behaving like a child or not acting their age? In terms of dreaming, it is acceptable to dream like a child because that’s where you most find authenticity but thinking, planning and behaviour should be that of an adult.
Growth is a conscious choice of learning from life’s experiences and becoming better with each experience instead of parking and complaining about what didn’t go well and finding faults with everything in the world. It’s time to grow up!
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