Growing Up

What does it mean to grow up? Does it mean washing your car, paying your bills, getting a job? Does it mean getting married, having kids, and sprouting gray hair? Is it necessary? Is everyone capable of it? Is it going to be hard and will it be worth the effort? All of these questions are probably what made Peter Pan decide to never leave Neverland. Growing up means a lot of different things to many different people. If we look at the words “growing up”, we simply think of the physical aspect of ageing, growing tall and wide. But for most people, growing up means something deeper involving a change in the approach that an individual has to life and the actions that are taken with it. In this essay, we will look at why people have difficulty growing up, why it does or does not matter that they do, and what growing up truly entails.

In M. Scott Peck’s book The Road Less Traveled, he suggested four rules of discipline that lead to maturity and growth in a human being. These four pathways are the delay of gratification, acceptance of responsibility, dedication to truth, and balancing. Although he claims that most people have learned to use these four tools by the age of ten, I do not believe that everyone learns to grow up by the age of ten. In reality, I can see a level of understanding that children this age have for “growing up” and being mature, but they choose not to. I think in order for human beings to put these devices to use, they must gain experience. With experience comes failure and success. This is how we learn. In order to act like a grown up, it’s necessary for us to learn to make the right decisions by trial and error. It is nearly impossible to be taught to live a certain way and never stray from it as a child. Children have higher tendencies to give in to their desires right away because they have not learned of serious consequences. With life experiences, that knowledge is instilled in us all.

Along with experience usually comes a