I may not be as mature as I once thought.

I once thought, perhaps prematurely, that I was mature. Every night afforded me an opportunity to think and philosophize — the day before it was about epistemology, whether knowledge is attainable; today it is about whether God exists or if religion can be reconciled with science and reason. Every day I may come across a new conclusion, a new insight. I imagine myself one day, as a professor of philosophy or a renowned public intellectual, presenting my new philosophical discovery in an auditorium and winning a thunderous applause from the audience. Perhaps, it may be a solution to the free will problem, an argument against Immanuel Kant’s ethics, or new evidence for the existence of God. I loved to think, and thinking made me think that I am mature.

But the day after, I goof around at school and crack jokes on a friend’s physique. I get yelled at by a teacher for failing to follow directions again. In some worse cases, I might have said something that might make a friend uncomfortable, or accidentally broken another person’s boundaries. I might have failed to keep a promise I gave, or laughed when laughter was not the most appropriate. I might have acted rude to someone because I was not in a good mood, or perhaps my attention wandered in an otherwise wholesome conversation with a classmate. Then, perhaps, I am not as mature as I thought the night before.

How mature am I, then? If, after presenting my new philosophy discovery and walking out of the auditorium, I treat everybody I run into with arrogance and disrespect, how mature can I claim to be? The dictionary definition for maturity is “characterized by an adult”, which would not be helpful. I may think and reason like an adult beyond his years, but if I behave to others like a self-absorbed infant, the label of maturity may not necessarily be applied to me.

Maturity, I came to learn, is certainly not only intellectual. Maturity is not limited to the inner contemplation within my head, nor to my academic or cognitive prowess. Simply because I know some theories about philosophy or know a lot of history does not mean that I am mature. Simply because I have a great vocabulary and am able to formulate complex sentences in my daily parlance (which often serves no other purpose than annoying those around me with my pomposity) does not make me mature. Rather, I came to see that maturity is a quality that permeates every aspect in my life: every word, every deed, every interaction with every man is a reflection on my character, and a judgment of my maturity. How patient I am with a classmate struggling with homework has an equal bearing to my maturity as how well I can fathom Aristotle’s metaphysics. How respectful I am to everyone — how kind, how honest, how genuine — is no worse an indicator of my true maturity than how sophisticated my language is or how much episodes of history I know.

Maturity does not only belong to my room at night, or to me in that auditorium. Maturity is everywhere, every time, and with everyone.