Immaturity

Immaturity

Vicomte de Valmont (played by John Malkovich): Why do you suppose we only feel compelled to chase the ones who run away?

Marquise de Merteuil (Glenn Close): Immaturity?

-Dangerous Liaisons (one of my all-time favourite movies)

Children often disobey their parents' wishes because they seek what's instantly pleasurable to them. Their limited experience in life prevents them from seeing the consequences of their actions. They want to eat as much ice-cream as possible, watch TV all day and never go to school. We as responsible adults would discipline them. And we forgive them because they are only children; they are still immature.

But do we, as adults behave in a mature manner all the time? I don't think so. Our immaturity is even worse for often we choose to do what we clearly know is not right.

The cheating husband, the drunkard and the gambler, are all examples of adults who behave immaturely. And being adults, we have the privilege of being free from the chastisement of elders; we are also slick in coming up with excuses for our wanton acts of recklessness.

We all make mistakes for we are not perfect. Our judgement could be wrong. To err is human, we say. But isn't that a convenient excuse for behaving immaturely?

Perhaps we should all acknowledge the fact that maturity is something we will never achieve in our lives. As I've mentioned in a previous entry, we are all forever children. Knowing that we are prone to behave worse than children, shouldn't we impose a harsher discipline on ourselves than what we subject our children to?

But then again, are we mature enough to act as our own disciplinarians?