Growing Up: The Final Stage

When we're young, it's part of our growing up process to adapt our behaviour to the expectations of our parents and other authority figures. Rebelling, we discover, makes our lives more difficult, so many of us begin to govern our behaviour in order to win the approval of the people with the power.

This adaptation becomes such an intrinsic part of our behaviour that it can carry over into our lives as adults. While to some degree, this adaptation is a good thing - ensuring that most of us adhere to laws and use cultural cues such as manners to get along with each other - it can also become a stumbling block to our own development.

The final stage in growing up is to truly become who you are meant to be, and that of necessity means basing that evolutionary process on your intuition and not others' opinions of how you should behave and what goals you should pursue.

This stage of development is extremely difficult for many of us who have family responsibilities and work obligations. Still, it behooves all of us to the best of our ability to listen to our intuition and recognize when we are needlessly limiting ourselves because of our concern about how others may react.

We've forgotten who we were as children, before we got overly concerned with the opinions of adults. We've forgotten to be silly. We've forgotten to take chances. We've forgotten to trust our initial feelings about things and people. We've forgotten to listen to our intuition.

Several times a day, try to catch yourself altering your behaviour based on how others will respond to your actions. Decide whether you really need to take their opinion or reaction seriously. If the choice you're making doesn't affect that person directly, ask yourself if you really need to take their viewpoint into account on this occasion.

It's unsettling when we strike out on our own, doing what feels right for us despite people who disagree with our choices or who want us to conform to a particular view they have of the kind of person we are. It's unsettling to stand apart from the herd and trust an inner voice that may ask you to be a maverick from time to time. Yet, in the end all you leave this life with is you - and the choices you made.