Defining Maturity Among People

It’s Ramadan and all I know that during this holy month, Muslims all over the world are cherishing and welcomes this annual event as a part of their religious activity. It’s actually such a blessing for me, as a Muslim, to feel this kind of experience as I believe people around the world, with their own religious activities and beliefs, would celebrate on their own behalf. The very important message about Ramadan itself is how we, as a human being, try to withdraw our desire to do bad things, lusts and sins. At the end of Ramadan, families would gather and up rise forgiveness among them, remembering them as a human being, they are reluctant to conduct false and mistakes among themselves.

It’s a common thing for me too, that usually during Ramadan, I won’t sleep until Sahur, have my breakfast at 3 A.M., conduct Salat Subuh afterward, then I will sleep until the sun rises and do my activities for the day. Just like now when I wrote this Blog.

Earlier this evening, I had some discussions with some of my friends on my Facebook Event page regarding my plan for a group trip to Bali in October. Just FYI, this trip has been planned by me and some of my friends to celebrate our graduation this year (SBM ITB class of 2008). During those discussions, I was quite surprised that one of my friend has reacted quite harsh regarding another person’s suggestion for the event. So I had to clear things up between them, try not to over-reacted and making sure that everybody’s speaking the same language. Even making smart-jokes just to chill things down

And then, I was thinking the whole evening, what’s wrong with people these days? I mean, has good communication has really downgraded into the lowest level of understanding that could heat things up between a person and another? Or is it just the goodwill of a person to solve questions and problems with clear head rather than just seeing things as it is. In my own perspective, we should not judge statements, attitude, moral, law, well you name it, at just the single side of an issue. Instead, we as human being, created by God to look things in a clearer perspective, moreover multiple side of an issue. Realizing that problems does not arise by itself, as there must be a root cause of it. This is what I, on my own behalf, thinks that it is important for people to be aware of. Knowing the root cause of a problem, might gives us the basic foundation to solve that problem.

So I guess, this is what actually happens to people often these days. Instead of using their own capability, with a clear and multiple approaches, people tend to force on their own ego, without letting others express what they had in mind, even if they do, they just don’t try to think on others’ condition when an issue had to rise. For me, this is the initial capital of creating a conflict. I’m not a person that highly praised on debates nor hated it. But of course in life, everything should have a reason. Well, yes maybe there are certain things that we as humans can’t explain, but yet in a connection of human-to-human interactivity, (almost) everything is built on a logical basis. For instance, I will be nice to people that are nice to me and as a result I will build a good interaction with them. On the other hand, will someone be nice to me if I’m not nice to them? In a complicated world like this, it’s definitely possible! Yet again, there will always be a reason for that. And even sometimes, we won’t be able to explain on these reasons, especially when it involves the thing called feelings. We as humans are blessed with feelings, as it in many cases may have great influence in our decisions and judgments. So in the end, between logic and feelings they both do us good in certain times, or even causes harm to us in another time.

What actually makes someone considered as a mature person? Maturity. Let’s define it. Maturity is the state, fact, or period of being mature. What is mature? In the definition of mature in persons, we will find two descriptions:

(1). Fully developed physically; full-grown
(2). Having reached an advantage stage of mental or emotional development characteristic of an adult

These two descriptions might align in a personality of someone, yet might not. For instance, we’ve seen in a lot of cases often (1) as we can look through the physical and outer signs of certain people. But would that be enough to tell someone that he/she is mature? I disagree with that, because in my opinion, what’s more important is (2). Why? Because this kind of development stage in a person will affect in many aspects of a person’s life, including their interactivity with others. This would show others how manly is a man, and how womanly is a woman. This is the stage where actually people would reveal their true identity, rather than hiding behind the mask called selfishness.

In the end, I believe that in this life we’re living, there shall be peace and unity among us as long as we believe to ourselves and try to tolerate each others. We actually learn these things during our elementary days in school, yet we might not realize when, why and where we should implement it. I try to remind myself that every time I face my greatest problems or fears with others, I try to think as others not only as being myself. Tolerance. That’s what our founding fathers has taught us since long ago, and that is the kind of value we should maintain until the day we are ready to pass it to our descendants.

“ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL”
(Obama, Barack. 2004. Democratic National Convention, Boston.)