Developing Emotional Maturity by Sirshree

We all face negative incidents in our life. Our happiness or sorrow is not determined by the incident as it is, but rather by how we perceive it. At some point we really need to think and decide how much value we should give to the incidents happening in our life.

Here’s a small example that will explain this important aspect of life. When you go to a store to buy a matchbox, you know that it should not cost you more than a few pennies. But, if the storekeeper asks you 10 times more than the actual price for the matchbox, will you still buy it. No, just because you know that the actual price or value of the matchbox is much lesser. It’s logical not to pay more than what its actual value is.

Similarly, when someone says something unpleasant to you or does not do the work assigned by you, you feel upset and stressed. However, at that time assess for how long exactly you should feel upset about it. If the answer emerges from you that you should be upset for 10 minutes at least, then go ahead and feel upset for 10 minutes, but not a second longer.

If you feel tensed about anything, ask yourself, I am greatly tensed, but exactly how much time should I feel tensed about this? Decide the duration and then remain under the stress for that much period. Do not give it even a minute more.

Each thing should be assigned its proper value. Do not let your mind torment you with hundreds of unnecessary or depressing thoughts about an incident. Assign the proper time value to an incident and then let it go. Only then will you develop emotional maturity.

Let’s understand what emotional maturity is and how to achieve it in life. Emotional maturity is attained when you have learned to assign appropriate value to every incident and do not bother yourself longer than necessary. People grow physically but not emotionally. They never learn to let go, and as a direct consequence, they remain stressed over trivial matters for a long period of time. We need to let go to overcome stressful situations in life.

Emotional maturity refers to the knowledge and ability to recognize how to respond to a given situation. It is the ability to decide when and what to say and what not to say, when to speak more and when to speak less. Once you have developed this skill, you come to know the value of any incident or thing, and how much stress a given situation deserves. Thus you will avoid unnecessary wastage of time and energy.

If you don’t allow the smaller issues in life to sap all your time and energy, only then will you be able to move towards the higher aspects. For instance, if you want to borrow something from a neighbor and he refuses, you feel upset. You start thinking of the many times when he had borrowed things from you, and this adds to your stress. Your mind fuels this stress by bringing up thoughts such as, ‘why don’t people give me anything when I need it, while they always take things from me whenever they need? Will they always take me for granted’… and so on.

At such times, the first thing we should do is to ask ourselves ‘how long should I be stressed by this incident.’ Ask and listen to the answer. If the answer is 15 minutes, then decide not to be troubled by it for more than that duration. When you practice this technique, you will be surprised because eventually you will arrive at the realization that even 15 minutes is too much to remain under such unnecessary stress, and you will gradually begin to reduce this time.

It is like if the shopkeeper offers the matchbox for 8 times its value rather than the initial 10 times, you will think that paying 8 times the value is also too much for the matchbox, and you will bargain till you get the right price.

Similarly, bargain with yourself and assign the right value to an incident before getting stressed by it. It is up to you to decide how much importance you must give to an incident. When you become emotionally mature and learn to recognize the actual value of any event that occurs in our life, you will spend a lesser amount of time in misery and sorrow. Not only that, you will also in fact find it foolish to be miserable or sad for trivial issues.

This is a simple, straightforward method that can yield results in anybody who applies it. Anybody who applies it consciously will get good results. Hence everyone must try to attain emotional maturity as soon as possible. Once you have attained it, you would understand that it is because of unconsciousness that you get troubled by any event.

Summary:
We need to decide how much value we should give to the incidents happening in our life.Decide the duration and then remain under the stress for that much period. Do not give it even a minute more.

Emotional maturity refers to the knowledge and ability to recognize how to respond to a given situation. It is the ability to decide when and what to say and what not to say, when to speak more and when to speak less.

Once you have developed this skill, you will learn to give appropriate value to any incident or thing, and how much stress a given situation deserves.

Note: Read our next article “Freedom from Emotions“