by Kayla Blankenship

Created on: June 01, 2008

There are defining moments in one's life where the realization that maturity is inevitable stares you straight in the face. This may happen many times in your life, for I am quickly learning that as life goes on there are areas of childishness and immaturity that we still cling to. We may feel that we know everything, that we are as mature as we are going to get, that we are done growing. Then, BAM! Reality slaps you hard, hard in the face. Or maybe it's wisdom. Whatever label one wishes to apply to it is no matter, it simply means you are going to have to change.

Change occurs constantly all around us, whether it be the seasons, people moving on around us or simply Darwinian. Yet, we fight this reality with a strength that could change the world if we redirected out energies. Why with so much proof that change is going to continue around us whether we like it or not, do we choose to struggle against it? The answer that comes to mind is fear.

Fear. We are so terrified that if we change we will lose everything. Not changing is our security blanket. We wrap our selves in the lies that it's not that we don't want to change it's that we can't change: we are who we are. However, as I get older I realize that this is an untruth. We can change, and often it will make us better people. For with age wisdom comes, clichd I know, but as I grow it has become undeniable. Arguing against it just makes me appear foolish and unseasoned. We are so desperate to grow up and follow the advice of no one. We feel if we listen to people older than us that we are selling our own individual selves out. We must fall, and fall again before we will ever come to the realization someone knows more than our own individual self.

The falling would be fine because eventually we learn from it; however, we often lose something very precious to us in this process. The item we lose may be a loved one, a career, or maybe even our hope in the world. Whatever we lose, it is in that moment that we realize that we must mature. Must change, must realize that we were wrong. Or we will be doomed to continue to lose the things that are most important to us.

Now some may decide to continue to fight this reality, but not me. The dawn has arisen, and my eyes are blinded by the truth. I will change. I will do this not only because it makes sense, but because it will be better for me. Letting go of the small stuff, letting go of needless anger makes me a better person, and it makes the people around me happier as well.

Why is it that I can allow a child to call me anything under the sun, or to attack me with all their might, and yet I would never think to retaliate against them? It is because I realize that they are children and do not know any difference. I can accept this, but until this moment I could not give my peers or elders the same understanding or acceptance. I have never been a Christian, but I now understand the maxim: turn the other cheek. For it is the one that hits you that suffers, the blow will never hurt long, only our pride is hurt. Pride I have realized is a useless emotion that destroys happiness. If only I had learned that lesson two weeks ago.

Which takes us back to the beginning, maturity is a cold hard truth that will get us all in the end. We must let go of our fear, and embrace the future with the knowledge that many have come before us and survived. Hopefully, we allow this knowledge to root deep within our selves, and it's not too late to change before we lose anything else we hold dear.

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