Maturity is Not Measured

WE CAN grow old but don’t grow up. An elderly grandfather at the age of 70 who goes home in a drunken frenzy throwing house items to the grandmother is hardly someone living up to his age.

Whereas a teenage boy at a tender age of 13, who gets to become the breadwinner of the family because the father has been incapacitated and the mom is just a laundry woman with 3 siblings to feed, is surely more responsible than the grandfather. Age is not the measuring stick for maturity. What is the standard then for maturity? Maturity is not measured by age but by the practice of virtues. You can be young and yet mature. “I understand more than the aged, for I keep thy precepts.” (Psalm 119:100)

What are virtues? Virtues are good habits. are

And the opposite of virtue is vice. defines our character. humility, hard work, hit the headlines. lying. capital sins. patience,

Vices are bad habits. We humans are a creature of habits. Whatever habits we develop ultimately

Examples of virtues trustworthiness, persistence, chastity, generosity, discipline and detachment from material things.

Vices on the other hand are more familiar to us because they are the ones that often

The more notorious ones are stealing, drunkenness, addiction, materialism, womanizing, graft and corruption and

Vices also includes pride, jealousy, laziness and the rest of the villains of the seven

The great philosopher Aristotle (who was born before Christ) said that to be truly happy in this life we have to practice the virtues.

This was confirmed by Christ in his Sermon in the Mount. us misery.

Vices activity

Christ called those who are poor in spirit, those who seek righteousness, those who are pure in heart and the meek as blessed meaning happy. (Matthew 5:3-12)

If virtue makes us happy then vices bring

We can observe this from people who are into vices especially those addictive in nature (gambling, drugs or alcohol). they are hurting. well as the feeling of enslavement. offer ceases as well. only fleeting is over and done

What a folly to be engaged in will do so in the long run. more successful in life. pleasure. day and night.” (Psalm 1:1-2)

They seem to be having a good time but deep inside

Hurting because of guilt, as

Being a slave to a person is something terrible but being a slave to an item or to an activity is worse.

The problem with pleasure is once the pleasurable with, the pleasure

That’s the reason why the vice has to be repeated many times and with increasing dosage (and with increasing expense). it, whereas virtues offer a better and more lasting happiness.

Virtues may not offer immediate pleasure but

It may be hard at the first few tries, but the satisfaction is more lasting, plus it makes you

Virtues can make you intelligent, rich, and happy. Virtues are derived from the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes.

Those two sets of moral standards are our compass to navigate in this world, so that amidst the confusion and chaos in this life, we find our true goal and end in God. “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked. Nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law, he meditates