Oh Real Mature

"Oh Real Mature"

I've grown up being a goofy guy.  I like it.  I like goofin' off, being silly, playing around.  Why shouldn't I have a good time at every turn that I can?  I have just often been met with the same response to my playfulness because the witnesses of it don't like it.  You guessed it.  It was always something like, "Oh, real mature!"  And, sorry ladies, but it's always you that say it.  I've never heard anything remotely close to that come out of a guy's mouth.  Now, that's not to say every women thinks that way and it's not to say there aren't men out there who do think that way.  I'm just saying, in my case, it's always been women.

And it's always in response to unserious behavior.  Anytime someone isn't taking life as seriously as someone who's wound tighter than a Slinky (and much like a Slinky, I do delight in these people getting pushed down stairs), the Slinky person can't resist the urge to verbalize their opinion that the goof-off is immature.

"Mature" is one of those words that people use over and over again, but they've never really looked up the definition of it.  It's all context clues.  Context clues are just a fancy way of saying "assumption" and do I really need to quote a really cliche expression for that word?  For the extremely sheltered, "When you assume, you make an ass out of u and me."  Really, though, when you assume,  the label of "ass" is all on you.  I'm not gettin' anywhere near that kind of ass.

Anyway, I decided to be one of the few to look up the actual definition of "mature".  Since so many people seem to think it's synonymous with "serious", I also looked up the definition for "mature", "serious" and the synonyms for both.  Guess what isn't in the definitions or synonyms of each one.  The other one!  "Mature" is not synonymous with "serious".  "Serious" is not synonymous with "mature".  Check your local dictionary and thesaurus for details.

Maturity is about growth and development.  If you limit yourself to being serious all the time then you're limiting your growth and development.  On the flip side, if you limit yourself to being silly all the time then you're also limiting your growth and development.

That's why I've been a believer of balance for a long time now.  I do want to mature, but by it's actual definition, not by the definition created by people who dislike silliness.  If a person really wants to mature then they have to accept both seriousness and silliness into their lives (along with tons of other aspects of life, of course).

So for those of you are quick to judge someone as immature because they're not being serious, this is your wake-up call.  It's actually you who is immature.