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Lacking or Slacking? Maturity

So many times when I experience failures I hate taking responsibility for them, I would rather just make excuses for why something didn’t work or why I failed. While a lot of that is mindset, there is part that is purely maturity. Oftentimes we blame the lack of something perhaps, lack of knowledge, lack of ability, or skill, or resources. While some of those are true in many instances of failures, in many cases the problem is slacking. Did I have the time or the ability to gain knowledge, skill, or resources and choose not to? That would be slacking. When people make a conscious choice to avoid something that could help them later on, that is on them, not other people, not on lacking what they need. I do not like the word laziness because there can be a number of reasons why someone did or didn’t do something for the benefit. However, I go back to maturity, because that has a lot to do with how we react in situations and how we go about fixing them. I have two short stories to share about maturity and how my own maturity has changed throughout the years. 
When I was a freshman in high school, I was in a large friend group with some really amazing and down to earth people - on the outside at least. But sometimes we experience unimaginable amounts of drama and gossip that even upperclassmen are annoyed with us. Most of the girls and guys in this large group formed small secret groups to talk negatively about other people, and of course everyone found out. Everyone was so fake to each other, and drama went from an occasional thing to every day, almost all day. Although we were in high school, we had the maturity level of 5 year olds. Popularity and quantity of friends became everyone’s goal, I too fell into the trap of drama, however I realized sooner than most it was not worth the hassle. As the years went by, our maturity grew significantly. When the pandemic shut down the world and school was canceled no one had anyone to talk poorly about or make them feel bad, the drama seemed to stop with going to school. I was sure it would come back though as soon as we returned to the classroom, however I was wrong. When we went back to school things were better, our class was getting along, and friend groups just became larger and more full of kindness and genuineness. 
Flashing ahead to graduation week, our entire class threw a huge grill out tailgate serving breakfast, playing games, and blasting music. Everyone talked to everyone, and hung out all together, there were no longer groups, but just all of us having one last big event together as a class. By this time, almost 4 years after all of the drama, we realized there were so many more important things, our maturity grew as we did, and we all ended the year successfully with no drama or stress from popularity contests. 
Pictured in our senior class at the tailgate.  


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