Maturity

[Bronathair]

You know, the world is a fickle mistress. Honestly, if you watch the news you just get a whole lot of depressing stories and then you look out at the world and see it's corrupt and sad. Honestly, it's hard to be immature in this world.

I'm finding I have to grow up more and more when really all I wanna do is go back to when I'd giggle at the word "poop" and throw things at girls because they have cooties.

It's a hard thing, holding on to the happiness of being immature and random. But it's something I'd love to hold on to.

Does anyone else feel my pain?

[Jack Squat]

What's the old saying, "Growing old is mandatory, growing up is not."

I may not giggle at 'poop', but I still watch most of my old standby cartoons, play video games, and have fun with friends by goofing off.

The "professional" world may require you to put on a straight face when you're there, but nothing's keeping you from acting like a 12 year old in your off time.

[13_CBS]

The "professional" world may require you to put on a straight face when you're there, but nothing's keeping you from acting like a 12 year old in your off time.

Aside from, you know, social pressure and everything. :smalltongue:

[blackfox]

I am finding it very hard to resist the urge to shout "YOU'RE A DUMMY POOPHEAD BABY!" at the top of my lungs. :smalltongue: Bah, maturity... who needs maturity?

But in all seriousness, I do feel your pain. Sometimes I miss kindergarden.

[Gray Jester]

I'm finding I have to grow up more and more when really all I wanna do is go back to when I'd giggle at the word "poop" and throw things at girls because they have cooties.

It's a hard thing, holding on to the happiness of being immature and random. But it's something I'd love to hold on to.

Does anyone else feel my pain?

By my definition of maturity*, the ability to relax and act immature is up there (under self-confidence and being comfortable in your environment), as long as you're willing to be serious when seriousness is necessary and are doing it in a way that isn't completely self-absorbed.

*A.k.a. what I aspire/work towards, not what I am.

Also, my inner 12 year old was seriously screwed up. I wouldn't go back to that for the world (well, maybe for a short while, and -only- if it was like, the entire world). Think Holden from Catcher in the Rye, but with more 12 year old angst, less sex, and more suicidal, and you're getting the basic idea. I like the age I'm at, and I think I will enjoy getting older and (hopefully) wiser while I'm still fairly young.

[Jack Squat]

Aside from, you know, social pressure and everything. :smalltongue:

I've never had a problem with that...might come from a long-standing tradition of me not particularly caring what people think about me.

[ColonelFuster]

I feel your pain.
I still pull pranks on people just because it's immature.
Not to mention I troll the 4chans occaisonally as "/An/onymous".

[Zeful]

But in all seriousness, I do feel your pain. Sometimes I miss kindergarden.

I don't, my kindergarden teacher picked on me. But then so did most of the children...

...you know, the more I look at my past, the less happy I get with it.

[Syka]

Maturity is just knowing when it's appropriate to act like a 5 year old again. :)

I love to stand in the rain. I'll go outside and just sit there and god knows what the others think about me. I still play Pokemon. I love the movie Ice Age. I'm easily amused and crack vulgar jokes. Yet I can just as easily blend into a professional world.

Cheers~

[Sneak]

You know, the world is a fickle mistress. Honestly, if you watch the news you just get a whole lot of depressing stories and then you look out at the world and see it's corrupt and sad. Honestly, it's hard to be immature in this world.

I'm finding I have to grow up more and more when really all I wanna do is go back to when I'd giggle at the word "poop" and throw things at girls because they have cooties.

It's a hard thing, holding on to the happiness of being immature and random. But it's something I'd love to hold on to.

Does anyone else feel my pain?

Yeah, I totally wish I were back in kindergarten. Life was so simple then. I was so innocent and happy.

Eh, who am I kidding. My kindergarten teacher yelled at me all the time.

That was probably the last time in my life that I didn't deserve it when I got yelled at. I blame her.

Seriously, though, being immature is fun.

[Tirian]

Aside from, you know, social pressure and everything. :smalltongue:

Not so much. If you think peer pressure is important, then you're either not young enough or not old enough. As C.S. Lewis said, "When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."

[blackfox]

I don't, my kindergarden teacher picked on me. But then so did most of the children...

...you know, the more I look at my past, the less happy I get with it.My kindergarden teacher/class was nice, it was the first-graders that were the problem. :smallsigh:


*snip*That was probably the last time in my life that I didn't deserve it when I got yelled at. I blame her.

Seriously, though, being immature is fun.I remember being in kindergarden and sticking out my tongue at the teacher and having to stay in during recess and being really depressed. But then I made a massive fort out of wood blocks and hid in it, so it was all okay.

[Pepz]

"I wish I could go back to College, life was so simple back then, what would I do, to go back and live in a dorm with a meal plan again." - Avenue Q - Wish I could go back to college

Yeah, not entirely the same sentiment but still, remembering how carefree the old days were and how hard it is right now gets worse every year. I am now 22 years young and still act like I'm 16 most of the time (12 doesn't work, I like drinking with my friends too much :smallbiggrin:). The trick is, as already said, to know when to be serious, and when to let the inner child become the outer child and just jump in a ball pit for fun :smallwink:

[Vagnarok]

I was going to quote you guys, but it's kind of dumb when 4 or more people fit in with what I want to say.

Basically, don't worry about laughing at poop jokes, I'm 22 as well and I do it all the time! Considering that, I don't do it in the middle of lecture, and not when I'm talking to a professor or boss.

Maturity to me, is being able to control your actions, but also your inhibitions. If you can't let your hair down you're the one being controlled.

[Felixaar]

To be mature is to embrace immaturity.

[bosssmiley]

Not so much. If you think peer pressure is important, then you're either not young enough or not old enough. As C.S. Lewis said, "When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."

He could afford to. He lived in the slightly unreal world of '50s Oxford Dons, which I once saw described as "a perpetual public school adolescence". :smallamused:

Maturity? Yeah, I heard about that. I think it's out of stock at the moment though. (you wouldn't believe the levels of juvenile horseplay, playground name-calling and silly cliquishness even grown adults are prone to...)

Ivor Cutler said it best:


"When I was 12 I wanted to be a real man - an old man with a beard, sitting at a table with a huge book full of wisdom. And what did society hold up to me for my admiration? A golfer, a boxer, a man who ran quickly; a soldier, a lawyer, a tycoon; a motorist, a pop star; a footballer. Into what kind of madhouse had I been born?"

^ When do I get to be that?

[SDF]

Hee hee, poop.

[Thufir]

The essence of true maturity is knowing when it's OK to be childish.

[Shas aia Toriia]

Hee hee, poop.

Hee hee.

*bursts into uncontrollable laughter*

[Sub_Zero]

I remember being in kindergarden and sticking out my tongue at the teacher and having to stay in during recess and being really depressed. But then I made a massive fort out of wood blocks and hid in it, so it was all okay.

I remember when I was 8 or something, I had to stay in because I hiccoughed, I crawled out the classroom thinking the teacher wouldn;t see me. I think he was actually only joking when he said I had to stay behind, I took it all very seriously though :smalltongue:

[Catch]

Maturity is a choice, which is not binary or irreversible. Part of being a grownup is dressing professionally, communicating effectively and behaving respectably, but the requirements of the adult world only preclude your childish wonder if you allow it.

Case in point: My girlfriend and can and do have long, in-depth discussions on politics (I know that's a dirty word around here), world affairs, and the strictures and structure of contemporary western society. We also go the grocery store an get excited about buying juice and cookies, then pretend to be zombies while waiting at the checkout.

Retaining your childhood is entirely up to you--don't let the world steal your joy.

[Telonius]

There's nothing childish about humor and hope. Maturity is just taking personal responsibility for your own actions. There are twelve-year-olds who laugh at fart jokes who are more mature than some sixty-year-olds who don't.

[rubakhin]

I don't have any particular nostalgia for my childhood (which I don't remember) or my adolescence (which was extraordinarily messed up) and, if anything, I'm more immature now than I was growing up. I was a really serious kid, really angry, really sad. I don't ever remember feeling innocent or happy when I was younger. Now I have more of those moments. I had to kind of relearn my humanity, and I didn't start on that path until I was seventeen or so.

But ... I miss having an excuse, you know? I'm totally washed up, and I just turned twenty a couple months ago. I left school when I was thirteen and I've never had a job. (Unless you count prostitution and getting involved in land wars in the Caucasus.) It was okay to be unemployed and uneducated when I was a teen, it was even kind of sexy being a teenage hustler, but now I feel like I should be living like an adult and I'm just not.

Of course, I felt like this when I was eighteen too, and now I think eighteen is really young. Probably by the time I'm twenty-five I'll think of twenty as being really young, but then I'll still feel old. Damn it.

[Weiser_Cain]

My childhood sucked, this is... acceptable.

[Player_Zero]

I'm the most immature. So I win.

[UncleWolf]

Meh, my childhood was decent, I wouldn't go through it again though.
Unless I restarted my life with everything I know now, of course. That'd be cool.

[Sub_Zero]

Meh, my childhood was decent, I wouldn't go through it again though.
Unless I restarted my life with everything I know now, of course. That'd be cool.

that would be so cool, you'd be really clever and stuff

[UncleWolf]

that would be so cool, you'd be really clever and stuff

My first three words would be "Invest...in...Google...":smallbiggrin:

[Sub_Zero]

My first three words would be "Invest...in...Google...":smallbiggrin:

would you know how to walk and talk as a baby, that'd be weird, this really clever baby just walking around knowing the future

[Copacetic]

Being Mature means knowing that being immature is more fun.

Case in point, poo. *snicker*

poo pooity poo poo. :smallbiggrin:

[Thufir]

My first three words would be "Invest...in...Google...":smallbiggrin:

You should use this idea for a Baby Week avatar.