Maturity involves accepting with good grace that we are – like marionettes – manipulated by the past. And, when we can manage it, it may also require that we develop our capacity to judge and act in the ambiguous here and now with somewhat greater fairness and neutrality.

The School of Life

One of my favourite quotes ever is: “We don’t see people for who they are, we see them for who we are.” This is so true in the sense that we are filtered by past experiences (which include many physical and emotional experiences) and therefore we view people and situations through these filters.

It’s only when we reach the point of emotional maturity can we judge and act in neutrality.

A situation we experienced in the past may have had resulted in a certain way but it doesn’t mean that if we were to experience a similiar or the same situation in the future, it doesn’t necessarily mean the outcome will be the same. Because the thing is so much has probably happened in between.

Take biasness and prejudism for an example. One of my high school teachers told the class a story once about how her father was prejudice towards Asians. He felt prejudice towards Asians because of the war he served in. One of his friends was killed by an Asian and from that traumatic event, he became prejudice towards Asians. But just because he had a bad or perhaps several bad experiences to do with Asians, it doesn’t necessarily mean all Asians are going to kill people.

We tend to let experiences define big portions of our lives or of ourselves but human beings are so fluid that we shouldn’t really let moments define anything other than what is happening in the present moment. Speaking of moments… life is momentary in perspective to how long Earth has been around.