Hello my fellow bloggers! Today we are going to talk about maturity. What stages does it have? What paradigms define each stage? Let’s dive in and discuss.
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The maturity continuum can be divided on three main stages. We start our life as infant fully dependent on our parents. We can do anything ourselves and fully rely on our family. We grow up and things start to change. We learn to be responsible for cleaning our room, studying, and our pet. At some point, we take the full responsibility for ourselves and put on the label “adult”. We can continue to grow our maturity and become something bigger than an independent person. Let’s take a close look at all three stages.
Dependence
This is the easiest stage of our life. We can be careless and rely on others. I don’t need to provide any examples here, I am sure you understand what it is like to be a child. Dependency is the paradigm of “you”.
The paradigm of you - you take care of me, you come through for me, you didn’t come through, I blame you for the results.
We are not responsible for things happening in our life and we put all the blame on others.
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Independence
The second stage is independence. Unfortunately, not all people get this far. Reaching your full physical maturity does not necessarily mean you achieve emotional or mental maturity. The paradigm of this stage is the paradigm of “I”.
The paradigm of I - I can do it, I am responsible, I am self-reliant, I can choose.
Being independent is a complex state. The easiest part of it is being physically independent. If you don’t have any disabilities, you can coupe up with tasks on your own. Mental independence is way more complex. You need to learn to think on your own, being capable to move from one level of abstraction to another, have creative and analytical mind, being able to express your thoughts and opinions. This is where problems begin for some of us. The most complex part of being independent emotionally. I will go with a quote here:
Emotionally, I would be validated from within. I would be inner-directed. My sense of worth would not be a function of being liked or treated well.
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It sounds easy on the first look. Just focus on your own personality and let it lead you. In real life, it is hard to be independent emotionally from society ideas, our colleagues and friends. Sometimes, we can achieve this by running away from dependence, “liberating” ourselves. This behavior can pose obstacles to move to the third stage.
Interdependence
At this stage we need to get back to an idea dependence is not a bad thing. The paradigm is as follows:
The paradigm of we - we can do it, we can cooperate, we can combine our talents and abilities and create something greater together.
We live in a society. The entire human history proves we can achieve bigger goals only working together. To be fully mature on this world on interdependencies, you need to learn to be a good team player. Being independent you can be efficient on your own, but you can’t be a good leader. I will add another quote here:
To try to achieve maximum effectiveness through independence is like trying to play tennis with a golf club - the tool is not suited to reality.
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Interdependence also has physical, mental and emotional parts. Physical aspect is simple and don’t require any explanation. Mental/intellectual interdependence lies in the ability to listen. You should realize you need the best thinking of other people to join with your own. To be interdependent emotionally, you have to recognize the need for love, for giving and for receiving love from others. And one last final quote to show the full picture:
As an interdependent person, I have the opportunity to share myself deeply, meaningfully, with others, and I have access to the vast resources and potential of other human beings.
This is all for today. The material for the post and all quotes taken form the book “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen R. Covey.
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