TOWARD EMOTIONAL MATURITY
by LEROY GARRETT

The chief aim of education is to develop psychologically healthy people. This goal is never completely realized inasmuch as the maturing process never ends. The time never comes when one can say, “I am at last mature,” for emotional maturation must continue as long as life itself. One can only hope to say, “I am at last maturing.” The participial form indicates the continuous process of growing up psychologically. We are at best moving toward emotional maturity.

PEOPLE AS “UNFINISHED SKETCHES”

The artist has a plan as he works with brush and palette upon the canvass. Every stroke and variation of color has meaning. The unfinished sketch may mean nothing to the casual observer, but the artist knows that the finished product involves many minute and laborious details. He works untiringly until the painting takes on the desired pattern, and only then can the observer discern the purpose of the artist.

Most of us are not able to give the direction to our lives that the artist gives to his painting. Those who watch us may be unable to see any particular direction in our lives, and as they patiently wait for some pattern to form they discover to their disappointment that there is no meaningfulness to our existence. We show no indication of going anywhere, and so we are but “unfinished sketches” of what we ought to be. A pattern never takes shape due to our lack of psychological maturation.

The Christian can believe that his life is a plan of God, that the Lord ordained that he should be born black or white, that he should be a Jones or a Martin, and that he should enter into the human experience as an American or a German. He can believe that he has come to the kingdom for such a time as this. He can believe that God overrules in his life and that all his vicissitudes are in some way related to the God who made him. This supplies him with what Erich Fromm calls “the need for a frame of reference.” Man can find direction if he believes that his life is a plan of God. Such a one can always be moving toward emotional maturity and he can believe that this is his reason for living.

There are the others who find themselves unable to start with God in an effort to discover meaning. The humanist starts with man and the naturalist starts with science. Many others never start simply because they can find no place to begin. Life to them is not only a vicious circle but a prison house as well. The New England bard, Edward Arlington Robinson, would answer them by saying that the world is not a prison house, but it is “a spiritual kindergarten where we are trying to spell the name of God with the wrong blocks.” We are but children in understanding. As “unfinished sketches” we must strive for completion of the self.

What is the cause of our neurotic age? Why is it that the greatest scientific and industrial nation in the world is on the verge of emotional calamity? Not only are our mental hospitals overcrowded, there are millions of Americans who struggle to keep from going to pieces. Elton Trueblood observes that the same Detroit that leads the world in industrialization likewise has its “ulcer alley” of neurotic executives. Ours is a neurotic world because it is a spiritually immature world.

SIGNS OF EMOTIONAL HEALTH

Each of us creates his own “psychological atmosphere” and he is therefore a unit of influence for either good or bad. The poet is right in insisting that we become a part of all we meet. It is also true that we are part of the reason why other people are like they are. Let us state that another way: The problems of the world are partly our own creation. Each of us does his part to make the world either good or bad. Perhaps we can measure the character of our influence by a roll call of the signs of emotional maturity.

1. He is a person who dares to care. This implies both the capacity and the courage to give and to receive love. Many people are afraid to express their emotions lest they be looked upon as different. In our culture to be “cool” is to be virtuous. College professors sometimes feel that objectivity and the scientific method necessitate a withdrawal of personal concern. Consequently their students never know how their teachers stand on great issues. There is too much of a “hands-in-pocket” attitude toward learning. This dispassionate approach is true in religious circles as well. The reason so much preaching is unexciting is because it does not touch the main streams of human existence. Preaching fails to solve problems simply because it is not concerned enough.

The mature person is one who is willing to take a chance with love. If he trusts his neighbor he may be disappointed, and if he believes in a friend he may be betrayed. Yet he is willing to reach out and take a chance with love. He knows that if he gives his heart to a cause he may be left holding the bag. He also realizes that there are many who are ready to say “I told you so” when the cause he loves ends in failure. Perhaps he believes with Pope, “‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

The healthy person realizes that he can lessen the chances of being hurt by narrowing his output of care. If he wants to avoid any chance of losing a son in war or a daughter to harlotry, he can refrain from bringing children into the world. No friend will ever disappoint him if he makes no friends. No one can ever hurt him if he joins the cult of withdrawal and never gives himself to others. Yet he can make no such choice, for he feels that to love is to be one’s true self.

2. He can come back after being hurt. The task of living is not easy for any of us. Even the emotionally healthy person has his problems and heartaches. Regardless of how diligent he is to make it otherwise, there are those who will misunderstand and misinterpret him. There are even those who will abuse him. As the mature person can deeply love he can also be deeply hurt. Jesus suffered much because. he loved much.

Unlike the immature person who sulks and resents, he is able to act like a gentleman even after being hurt. He will not take refuge in defense mechanisms nor will he blame others for his own mistakes. He faces his problems realistically and somehow manages to stay on top of them. He realizes that life has its give and take, and he understands that he cannot always call the plays his way. He is willing to play the game according to the rules, and he learns to take it philosophically when he is called down: Jesus taught us how to love in the face of hate and to hope in the face of despair. This is perhaps life’s most difficult task, to love the unlovely and to hold out hope when all seems lost. The emotionally healthy person can do this because he realizes how complex life is, how little he knows, and how much every man needs every other man.

3. He is a person who gains insight through involvement. The teacher who involves himself in the life of his students has greater insight of their problems and possibilities. The statesman who is truly involved in the world struggle for understanding will attain the insight of the ecumenical mind. Stringfellow Barr beckons us to “join the human race,” which means involvement of the self with world problems. The mature person is less provincial and less prejudiced, and he is able to look at problems from a wider perspective. The immature lives in a world of private reference and is insensitive to the needs of others.

The New Testament speaks of insight that comes through involvement when it says, “Being rooted and grounded in love, you have power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth.” The love is the involvement and the comprehension is the insight. Perhaps Peter’s love for Jesus explains his insight into the nature of his messiahship. The mother senses her child’s needs because of her abundant love toward the child. We too will begin to comprehend the breadth, length, height, and depth of human existence when our love for the world is overwhelming.

4. He strives to be part of the answer rather than part of the problem. Another way of stating this is that he is child-like instead of childish. He is a humble person, realizing that the burdens of the world are partly his own. Irrespective of what problem arises he resolves to act maturely and thus be part of the answer. He knows that childish behavior only makes bad matters worse. Harry Emerson Fosdick tells of an eighty-seven pound cripple who became the coxswain for the winning crew at a large university, and this because he was determined not to be a cipher among his fellows. The lad saw where even with a dwarfed body he could be part of the answer. Fosdick calls this the principle of self-acceptance. This cripple could have responded to his handicap by rebellion, despair, self-pity, and inertia. The mature person keeps his rudder straight despite the turbulence of the sea.

5. He moves toward life. He is life-affirming and has a reasonable optimism about man’s predicament. He realizes that life is a struggle, but he believes man is equipped to win in the end. This may include Albert Schweitzer’s “reverence for life”—one of the great ideas in the history of human thought. The man who truly loves life-all life, including animal and vegetable life—will move toward an affirmation of life. He will love people and enjoy being with others. Life-affirmation will mean adequate goals and a sense of direction. One can move towards life as either an extrovert or an introvert, and it is not necessary for one always to be on the go and doing something in order to be mentally healthy. One can be busy and still not move toward life. It is the attitude toward people and things that makes the difference. In his Psalm of Life Longfellow urges us to “learn to labor and to wait.” The mature person has learned to wait. He knows how to “give men time,” as Luther taught his disciples.

6. He takes responsibility for his own actions and does not try to blame others. Since the days of Adam it has been a human frailty to “pass the buck.” In the story of the first sin Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the serpent. The whopper of them all is that one by Aaron. When Moses returned from the mountain and found the people worshipping a golden calf, he called Aaron to account. Aaron said, “I threw the gold into the fire and there came out this calf.” Man is most immature when it comes to assuming responsibility. He seldom learns to say, “I am wrong.” An immature person will do most anything rather than to admit that he goofed.

Actually this is a form of dishonesty. More simplicity of character will bring a man to terms with himself. The world teaches us to be subtle, cunning, and deceitful. Vanity and artificiality are worldly arts, and sham and pretense are carnal means of attaining success. Such approaches to life are far from Paul’s standard in 1 Cor. 13:4: “Love makes no parade, gives itself no airs” (Moffatt). The mature person does not parade nor does he put on airs. He sees himself as he is, which is the most effective way to “take down” the ego.

7. He can adequately evaluate himself. This means that the mature person is not only honest with himself, but that he can properly evaluate his own strength and weakness. This includes proper self-esteem and self-confidence. Since the Bible says, “Let no one think more highly of himself than he ought to think,” it might also have said, “Let no one think more lowly of himself than he ought to think.” There is no virtue in under-selling one’s self. There should be a feeling of value in proportion to one’s individuality and achievements. It means also to feel morally sound. A healthy person will not have feelings of severe guilt, nor will he brood over his mistakes. He will give proper evaluation to any and every problem and then act accordingly. He will not be anxious over matters beyond his control. He will recognize that he, like all other people, has certain unacceptable desires and weaknesses, and though he knows some of these will always be present” he manages to live with himself peacefully and to struggle toward greater maturity.

8. He has the ability to learn from experience. There will be an absence of rigidity in approaching a problem, for he will realize the possibility of being wrong in his interpretation or application. He is not dogmatic or arbitrary, for he recalls his mistakes of the past and realizes that there is more than one side to be considered. So he will try different ways of attacking the problem. This also means the ability to learn spontaneously. It means he will avoid any method that has failed when the risk is not worth taking or better methods are available.

9. He will be adequately free from his group or culture. Though he is not unlike those around him and though he stands close to his group in those things that the group considers important, he maintains his own individuality and originality. This means he knows how to make a difference between the important things in life and the unimportant things. While he can graciously accept compliments from his group, he is not dependent on flattery or group approval. He has a degree of tolerance and appreciation of cultural differences. He is willing and able to inhibit those desires and practices tabooed by his culture, and yet he will dare to be different if he thinks the situation demands it. He will not believe that friendship or fellowship is dependent upon all members of the group believing the same way. He will see that persons think and act differently because of the diversification that is apparent in all nature. He will view conformity for the sake of conformity as unwholesome.

10. He develops the powers of synthesis. This is the power of integration, the ability to bring together the wide-ranging collection of skill and concepts. Matthew Arnold speaks of “the ability to see life steadily and to see it whole.” He has steadiness, assurance, and creativity. He can postpone action until a more certain plan is devised. He is not “trigger happy” and he can wait for the go-ahead signal. Through maturing one learns to think and to act under pressure. He can draw upon his resources and refer to his frames of references with the least awkwardness. He moves toward a more articulate way of life. He knows what he should do and so he moves steadily and gracefully in that direction.

EQUIPMENT FOR MATURING

As one views the foregoing pattern of maturity he realizes that emotional and intellectual maturation is a lifetime process, and that even in a lifetime there might be little development unless one’s life is properly directed. Many people grow more immature with the years, and like Hezekiah whose life was extended 15 years, it will take more than years to move them toward maturity. There must be a change in the way one thinks. It is the attitude toward people and things that makes the difference. There must be principles to which one can look that will guide him into ways and means of self-integration. These principles are based upon “the great unexpendables” within us. Herein we have the power to become real persons. God has placed within each of us the power to become what he wants us to be. We might call this the power to live the full life.

1. The greatest life principle is love. There is a universal need for love, and everyone wants to be loved whether he admits it or not. Love is necessarily reciprocal, for loving and being loved are parts of the same process. Love is the most potent of the powers within. Its power for the full is described in one of Longfellow’s poems:

Ah, how skillful grows the hand

That obeyeth Love’s command!

It is the heart, and not the brain,

That to the highest doth attain,

And he who followeth Love’s behest

Far excelleth all the rest!

The mature person works with loving hands. Three stonecutters were working at their wheels. When asked what they were doing, the first replied that he was making $3.00 an hour and the second said he was cutting stone. But the third man stated that he was building a cathedral. Dishwashing can be drudgery or it can be a work of love. This is why one should enter a vocation as a response to a divine call. It is damaging to the personality to work only for money. Blessed is the man who is in love with his work, for in this love experience he is maturing emotionally and intellectually.

Maturity also demands that we look with eyes of love, speak with lips of love, and listen with ears of love. This is an effective way to test our use of the greatest of the unexpendables: Is my voice a voice of love? Do I listen with a loving attitude? Do I look at the world around me with loving eyes?

Most of the obstacles to self-fulfillment can be removed by love. Resentment is murderous to the soul, but love does not resent. Envy is destructive, but love envies not. “Love taketh no account of evil”—or as Schonfield renders it, “Love keeps no score of wrongs”—shows that the maturing Christian will put the best possible construction on the motives and conduct of others. If we really love a person we will judge him charitably and mercifully. One of the greatest triumphs of love is when it leads a man to rejoice when his enemy or persecutor does well. Human nature without love keeps a record of the wrong and stores up hate accordingly. The mature person is filled with a universal benevolence and rejoices when all men prosper.

Dr. Smiley Blanton, in his book Love or Perish, argues that man is driven by two powerful forces, a life-affirming power which is love and a life-denying force which is hate. Self-discipline will determine the direction life takes. He avows that we love or we perish. He gives documentary evidence of infants who died for lack of love, and he feels that most of life’s problems center in hate which is always destructive. One may be alive physically but he is dead spiritually, emotionally, and intellectually without love. This is another way of saying that love as a great unexpendable power within us can lead us to maturity. Dr. Blanton further affirms that:

Whatever you do in life, do with love! We have no alternative save to act from motives of hate—yet how doleful to make this our choice! For hate is the destroyer of life, where love is its guardian. Hate blinds our vision and warps our talents; but love releases our energies for the creative action that sustains mankind. While all human behavior springs from a mixture of both these great forces of nature, it is within our power to determine which shall prevail as we journey through life . . . .

Love has reached across the ages to bind men together in an ever-widening circle of humanity. It has served to construct the essential fabric of most of the world’s great religious and ethical teachings. Slowly but stubbornly over mankind’s long history, it has tamed our savage nature and taught us how to transform a primitive wilderness into a cultivated garden.

Our vantage point is that love is an unexpendable source of power within us. Suppose we could love only thirty-six people? Suppose some Fate could decree that our love be limited to only a few friends? Love is not like that, for the more we love the more we have to love. And no one can keep us from using this powerful force—even on those who do not love us! The love force is a directional signal that points the way to mature personality.

2. Man’s creative genius is a life-affirming principle. Man is a creator as well as a creature. In this respect he is made in God’s image. There is a magnetism about a person that extends itself to its environment. Man comes to feel that there is a sense in which his environment is his own creation. He can create an atmosphere of love or hate, and he can make a situation difficult or easy. His greatest creative act is in bringing out the best in people, including his wife and children. He looks upon youth as a great natural resource, and he realizes that their proper development depends in part on his own creative skills.

The woman as a homemaker is doing the work of an artist. She is creating character. Homemaking is a fine art that should be considered a holy calling, and it should be entered into for its own sake and as an end in itself.

Man also creates ideas and principles by which to live. Many of these live on only because others fought and died to preserve them. Man gained the idea of the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God through thousands of years of frustrated existence. It takes time to create. Even the great Creator took his time in making the universe. It is through the crucible of controversy that man discovers the great truths. Man is a creator in that he is building his own life. The maturing person realizes that this takes time.

We are question-asking creatures and this too makes us creators. The great questions lead to great ideas and great ideas lead to great works of art. Take the question, “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” One can spend a lifetime finding the answers to such a question, and in doing so he is creating personality now and forever. The question, “How can I encourage love and diminish hate?,” is more far-reaching in that it has universal concern. Dr. Karl Menninger believed that this question about encouraging love and diminishing hate is the central issue of our modern world. The question has the beautiful maturity of moving beyond the self to a larger frame of reference. As we move outward thinking about how to breathe love into the life of others we strengthen our own resources. We save ourselves by saving others. How can we clear up hate-breeding misunderstandings? We create as we find the answer to such a question. We mature by honoring this creative power within us.

3. Communication is a principle of maturation. Man is different from animals in that he can think and then talk about what he thinks. He can also listen and meditate. This indicates that conversation is no one-way deal. A monologue is not conversation, for the very principle of communication implies joint participation. So the good conversationalist is first of all a good listener. We are maturing while we listen and while we talk provided the conversation is constructive. Here is one big difference between good and poor mental health. The neurotic is often blocked in his communicative efforts, while the healthy person can create ideas through good conversation. The disturbed person does not know how to listen, but the maturing individual is building bridges of understanding by giving attention to the ideas of others.

Educators are learning much from play therapy. Children who are too disturbed to express themselves verbally are encouraged to do so by handling clay and paints. This translates the inner emotional states into outer form by means of free manipulation of materials. We have all heard the advice given to adults that they should take a walk or work in the garden in order to release the resentments stored up within. All this reveals the importance of man as a creature of communication. If the communicative powers are not properly used and developed trouble will result and immaturity will be long lasting. To develop articulation is one of education’s greatest tasks.

It is this writer’s conviction that the failure to develop the power of communication is the cause of many of our woes. If a teenaged couple could share the thrill of exciting conversation there might be less incentive to turn to petting. Gangs and mobs of delinquents form because there are no other outlets of self-expression. Husbands and wives would get along with each other better if this unexpendable power of communication were used more intelligently. Aristotle’s “intellectual culture” might become the point of reference as we tap this neglected source of power in our move toward maturity.

4. The principle of learning is part of the equipment for maturation. Learning is another of the unexpendable powers within us since it is a process that never ends. The day never comes when one can say that he has learned it all. It seems to be true that the more we learn the more we have to learn. If what we know is represented by a circle, then the smaller the circle the less it touches the great area of the unknown; but the more we learn the more the circle enlarges, and so the more it touches the area of the unknown. This is why learning not only matures us but also humbles us. It is the learned man who realizes how little he knows. Socrates could say, “I know nothing.” He meant that in the light of what there is to know he knew nothing. By his wisdom Socrates could draw a large circle, but the larger the circle the more it touched the area of the great unknown, and so he realized that he knew nothing.

The learning process grows by being used. It is a kind of infinity within us. Because of the frailty of our bodies our muscles and limbs soon give way, making it impossible for us to bounce around as we once could. But not so with the mind. By being used it continues to be active and productive. It is by means of a consistent and proper use of the learning power that man moves toward maturity. As educators we can speak of different kinds of learning, such as associative and trial and error, and we are also conscious of different levels of learning, such as awareness, recognition, recitation, comprehension, use, generalization, and internalization. These distinctions illustrate the infinitude of learning, and they show us that one matures intellectually in relation to his learning level. Take the Gettysburg Address as an example. One may learn it only to the level of being able to recognize it when he hears it, or he may only be aware that it exists, which are only the first levels of learning. He may learn it well enough to recite it by memory and to use it as a frame of reference in conversations and essays, and yet these levels are far below the possibilities. To learn on the levels of comprehension and generalization is to be able to transfer the principles of the Gettysburg Address in an intelligent way to other areas. An even greater level is internalization which is akin to inspiration, for when one reaches this degree of learning he becomes dedicated to the ideals that are involved and begins to look at the human experience and the world around him as his own unfinished work.

How great the distance between learning on the level of awareness and learning on the level of internalization! Most of us never get beyond the first two or three levels on the very few things that we do learn. There is a vast difference between learning American history well enough to write a good final examination and learning it well enough to work with its ideals and principles by way of generalization and internalization. To memorize facts about Jefferson, Jackson, and Emerson, or even to comprehend their writings, is one thing, but to know them as friends and to internalize their ideas into one’s own life is something else.

The apostle Paul must have had internalization in mind when he spoke of knowing Christ. This is more than knowing facts about Christ. It is relatively easy to learn the Bible on the first two or three levels, but as one advances to the levels of comprehension, generalization, and internalization he is truly “growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ.” We are maturing when we encounter the great minds of history as people like ourselves, thus sitting with them, and sharing with them the thrilling experience of human existence. The maturing person will not merely study a man like William James or Alexander Campbell, but he will come to know them and to enter with them into the great enterprise of life. Books are not merely facts; they are people to whom we can talk back and with whom we can share the great ideas of human thought.

5. As a creature of wonder man has equipment for maturation. Man’s emotional and intellectual maturity might be measured by the size of the things that he wonders about. What are the mysteries that a man lives with? As a question-asking creature man is by nature a philosopher. Philosophy begins in wonder. It enables man to move from “what is” to “what ought to be.” By wondering, man is able to fancy everything different from what it is. Plotinus defined philosophy as “the things that matter most.” Man is at his best when he wonders about the things of most importance and when he struggles to rise above the mediocrity of his own narrow environment. It is by wonder that man is aroused from his native dogmatic slumber and begins to think for himself.

We are all impressed with a child’s world of wonder. There is no reason why wonder should not continue into adulthood. It is tragic when man ceases to be amazed, when he comes to take the world around him for granted. It is noteworthy that astronomy, the science of wonder, was part of the educational plan in Plato’s ideal republic. Life may become less frantic and more meaningful if we take some time out to watch the stars. The psalmist of Israel was moved to ask one of life’s biggest questions while watching the stars: “When I consider the heavens, the work of thy hands, and the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained, what is man that thou art mindful of him?”

By wondering more we become more meditative. Symbolism will come to have greater meaning to us. If the Lord’s supper is a genuine spiritual exercise it must also be, a wondering experience. Would not prayer also be closely related to wonder? The wondering man is searching for something. More of us need the spirit of Emerson who stole away into the tall pines of Walden so that he might communicate with eternity.

6. It is by “bending down” that one is lifted up to the level of maturity. Dr. Harry A. Overstreet once told this writer that he considered the Christian idea of the incarnation as the greatest idea in human history. He saw in this idea the great and perfect God “bending down” in order to lift up fallen man. It is in this respect that we become like God, for we too can bend down to help those around us. In the incarnation God extends himself into the human level. God becomes man. This is the great mystery of Christianity. If the Christian makes this idea functional in his own life then he too will so give of himself that he becomes a part of his environment. Life thus becomes outgoing and affirmative. It moves toward a new plateau. Thus the most energizing imperative of our time is in the contradiction that a man saves his life by losing it. He gains the stature of maturity by bending down to help those weaker than himself.

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Leroy Garrett is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at MacMurray College, Jackoonville, Ill.