Age 50 is the mile marker where any mildly perceptive person becomes acutely aware that he or she alone is accountable for the content and coherence of their character.

Personal discontent and lost illusion is the catalysis and the principal theme for every book ever written. The sign of maturity is when a person finally realizes that they would rather live truthfully than persist indulging his or her comforting delusions.

Teenagers of every ilk also operate under the dark cloud of knowing that the easiest part of their lives is over and the terribly difficult years are about to commence. They understand they are beginning to make career and character defining decisions that will indelibly shape their future. Sensing that they must make life-defining decisions when they lack the maturity to apprehend the ramifications of their actions, heightens their pressurized anxiety.

As we age, our one great regret is the growing loss of our personal energy. Our second regret is a youthful lack of direction when we possessed physical and mental vigor.

Cockiness – the state subjective or intuitive state of self-assurance – is a sign of ignorance. Maturity comes with encountering the horrible and learning about what a person can withstand.

With endless pharmacological supplies at our fingertips, we do not need to penetrate the motives behind our actions, feelings, transgressions, dreams, and phobias. High on chemical substances we can remain stagnated in an infantile mental state. Without introspection, we foreclose ourselves from gaining the insight that allows us to navigate adulthood’s ceaseless demands.

In our formative years, every person begins creating a self that can keep him or her company through later stages in life. It requires concentrated effort to create self-hood. The task of creating a fully developed human being is an ongoing process, an open-ended assignment. The goal of self-hood is to evade slipping into a state of thoughtlessness, where we fail to take ownership of our thoughts, deeds, and lifestyle.