like an infinite time away. But a healthy adult does not view his life and goals in this manner. He does not repress
his frustrations; if he can find a way to overcome them, he does: if he cannot, he moves on; he is not paralyzed by
them.
- A cardinal characteristic of maturity is emotional stability. This trait is the consequence of one particular aspect
of the policy of conceptual functioning: the ability to preserve the full context of one's knowledge under conditions
of stress-frustration, disappointment, fear, anguish, shock. It is the ability, under the pressure of such emotions, to
preserve one's capacity to think. The opposite of this state is described as "going to pieces."
One of the unmistakable signs of immaturity is the characteristic of being habitually swamped, mentally, by the
concrete problem of the moment, so that one loses one's abstract or long-range perspective, one loses the wider
context of one's knowledge, and one is taken over by feelings of anger or panic or despair that paralyze thought.
A young person's hold on an abstract perspective, under conditions of stress, is, at best, tenuous; that perspective is
still in the process of being formed and of growing firm. But a properly developed adult's perspective has hardened
and does not normally crack under pressure.
(This kind of emotional stability must be distinguished sharply from that counterfeit form of stability which is
achieved by emotional repression. The repressor, who is so fearful of losing control that he dares not let himself
know what he feels, is not an exponent of maturity.)
- Finally, there is an aspect of psychological maturity that is profoundly important and that few adults fully
achieve. It pertains to one's attitude toward the unknown—not toward knowledge which has not yet been
discovered by anyone, but toward knowledge which is available but which one does not possess.
To a child, the world around him is—necessarily—an immense unknown. He is aware that adults possess
knowledge far in excess of his own and that there are many things he is not yet able to understand. He knows that
he does not yet know the wider context of his life and actions. He tells himself in effect: "I will have to wait until I
grow up. There are many things I cannot understand now. They are known to other people, but they are beyond me
at present."