Grow Up!

"Most people don't grow up. Most people age. They find parking spaces, honor their credit cards, get married, have children and call that maturity. What that is, is ageing"- Maya Angelou
 

In my secondary school, my biology teacher defined growth as an irreversible increase. Growth is part of the life attribute (MR NIGER D CALL). It is interesting that passage of time doesn't equal maturity and that grey hair does not signal wisdom.


I had a heated argument with an elder cousin of mine. In the middle of the argument, he echoed "Grow Up" and that got to me. It really got to me. It got me thinking. I was pissed off and all but it got me thinking real hard. This post is about self-preservation. It's about confronting me. This post is for those who are not afraid to tell the truth without holding back. This is for that person who is not afraid of being vulnerable.

 

 

Many of us find it comforting to hide under self-bravado allowing egoistic tendencies to define us. I lived in this reality for a long time. As a child, I suffered from acute low self-esteem. I grew up in an uber domestic violent environment and home. At a tender age of five when kids at my age were busy playing "Baba n Mama" games, I was busy asking too many questions. I was absent minded for a long time. On top of being bullied, I couldn't bring myself to expressing my thoughts. Mine was an environment that didn't permit children to ask questions. Many feared being scolded and warded off by inpatient elders. I guess that's why many of us ended up making too many mistakes. We grew up too fast.

 

 

Back in the days, we had many reasons to gather together from time to time to celebrate something; weddings, thanksgivings e.t.c. I dreaded these meetings cos of my "sophisticated" cousins from Lagos. The mere fact that these guys spoke high end English sent such a cold shiver to my bones. I remember at one of extended family gathering where an Uncle asked my Dad out of curiosity "Broda Kola (My Dad), shey awon omo yin ko le soro ni? Translated "Brother Kola, don't your kids talk at all? That encounter was really embarrassing to say the least. I wish he (my Uncle) knew how much I had to say but didn't have the guts to utter a single statement. I was too overwhelmed to relate with my own relatives.

 

 

The tongue and the teeth are neighbors yet they experience friction from time to time. In life, we can't always agree with everyone. In fact, we wrestle in our own minds. More often than not, we are quite unsure of many things. I was taught back in school that conflicts are inevitable. What is expedient is the resolution of conflicts. We must learn to find a meeting point. It is a right thing to do. Maturity is not a function of age but of sound judgment.


The moral of the story is that extreme emotions (selfishness, anger, hate, jealousy e.t.c) are pure manifestations of signs of immaturity. We must do away with all of them. We must pursue to become better people. The world  doesn't stop for us. Never over-estimate your relative importance because everyone has a replacement. Knowing that we will not be here forever should teach us to number our days to apply our hearts to wisdom. It is what it is.

 

 

An African proverb posits that "When we cry, we should not stop seeing". It is wisdom to be able to confront out weaknesses with a view of being able to rise above the things that beset us. Growing old is inevitable but growing up is a choice. I choose to grow up.


 Image Credit: Google Image