At what age do we actually grow up?
Is it during childhood, or perhaps in our teens? For most of us, the answer is, “No.” Some of us do a good bit of growing up during our 20s, but for most of us, it’s a lifetime journey. Why is that? It’s partly because our brain is not done “growing up” during those early years, and that process can continue for our entire lives. We’ll come back to how that works later in the article.
Suffice it to say for now that life is an ongoing learning experience, and we can continue to find new epiphanies in how life works based on our experiences and how intentional we are in the process.
I did some growing up in my teens and 20s, but that experiential learning was somewhat random when I look back on it. I didn’t know where I was going in life, and I was wandering around without answers to questions I hadn’t even asked yet. As the Cheshire Cat says to a disoriented Alice in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.”
Those early experiences were actually just the beginning of an ongoing journey of discovery that carried on well into my 50s. Actually, I’ll correct that: I’m not done growing up yet, and I’m greatly looking forward to continuing that process.
In my early years, I let my lifestyle decisions lead the way, and I did whatever I felt like doing at the time. But when we do that, we allow our short-term, self-absorbed choices to shape our values and our view of the world, rather than being intentional in figuring out what real life is all about and who we are meant to be.
One of the biggest breakthroughs we can experience in life is to reverse that process to move:
FROM: Our lifestyle shapes our beliefs and perspective which solidifies into our values and worldview.
TO: We thoughtfully choose our values as anchor points of our worldview, and that informs our beliefs and perspective which we use to make thoughtful lifestyle choices.
But what if you’re older, perhaps in your 40s, 50s, or beyond? In that case, this discussion is even more important. If you haven’t paid much attention to concepts such as your worldview or values before, don’t beat yourself up too much, because that is the case with many people. But now you know, so you can do something about it. You can start that process of discovery now.
No matter how old you are, if you look for them, you can discover epiphanies along your journey that will shape your values and worldview. Breakthroughs and life transformation occur when you apply that insight to make good lifestyle choices to live life better.
My Lifestyle Journey – Part 1
Looking back at my life, there are times when I wish I had done things differently.
I was a nice enough guy, and I had fun along the way, but in hindsight it is easy to see how much time and energy I spent going down the wrong paths in life. But we each have our own journey, and I feel blessed that I don’t carry a burden of regret or guilt, even though I could have done some things better.
As I started college at Georgia Tech, I was excited about the future: partying! I was now free to do whatever I wanted. That included a lot of drinking, because I had discovered in high school that alcohol made me feel the way I wanted to feel. It had become a useful coping mechanism to change my state on-demand from feeling “anxious, nerdy, and insecure” to “fun, cool, and connected.”
I was in a good school with positive prospects for the future, but I wasn’t looking for meaning or purpose in life. I wandered through picking a major for a couple of years, but that worked out okay with Industrial Engineering, which turned out to be a good fit for me.
My approach to the school part of college was designed around doing the least amount of work possible while somehow maintaining good enough grades. Even though I wound up on the Dean’s List, I didn’t do anything approaching my best in my classes, but that left me time for the “more important” things I had on my agenda.
But it was a buzz-kill when negative consequences started to pop up due to my choices:
- I was lucky to escape a possible DUI after one of our nights out drinking.
- What somehow seemed like a good idea at the time to pull off a “dine-and-dash” turned into an unfortunate incident that almost went very wrong. There were consequences, but not enough to teach me much at the time.
- My casual attitude toward school was exemplified when my senior design team was chosen—an honor—to present our project to the freshman IE class. Instead, we blew off the presentation to go tubing down the Chattahoochee River and drink beer.
All that said, I generally enjoyed my college years and had lots of fun. After all, I was doing whatever I wanted to do, even if some of the choices I was making weren’t always the wisest ones.
Mature concepts like “values” or forming a “worldview” weren’t on my radar screen, so without realizing it, my lifestyle choices slowly became a way of life. One step at a time, I evolved into an often-impaired but relatively high-functioning 23 year-old alcoholic.
What is Our Worldview?
We all have a worldview, whether we think of it that way or not. Either way, it can be very helpful to step back and consider, “How do I think about the world, and how does that affect the choices I make?” Becoming more thoughtful and intentional on why we do the things we do can help us discover epiphanies of self-awareness that may sometimes lead to breakthroughs in the choices we make.
Our worldview is how we perceive the world to be, and it affects what we deem important or trivial. It forms a foundation for our character, and it shapes who we become by serving as a compass that guides the way we think and feel and the choices we make along our life journey. See it as our philosophy, ideology, value system, or way of thinking, and it is comprised of the values, attitudes, and expectations we form about how we view the world.
Our worldview includes the answers we develop to life’s biggest questions such as: “What is the meaning of life? What is my identity, and what will my contribution be to the world? How can I develop a sense of community with the people around me and the world, and do I have a bigger purpose?”
We each have our own worldview, but there are general types of worldviews some people consider along their life journey:
- “Life is Meaningless” – Rejection of all moral and religious principles.
- “Only Science Matters” – Scientific laws account for everything in life.
- “It’s All About Me” – Pursuit of pleasure or sensual self-indulgence.
- “Everything is Relative” – No universal truths or objective reality.
- “Something Bigger Than Me” – A Higher Power runs the universe.
The Higher Power decision is the “wild card” in our worldview, because that choice affects virtually everything else about how we perceive our existence. Some claim that the universe or nature is their higher power, others think there are lots of gods, and some believe in no god at all. But the majority of people in the world are theists who believe in a supreme being who is involved in our life.
The biggest questions each of us must answer about our worldview are: “Who is God, what is he like, and what is my relationship to him?” How we answer those questions changes everything, so it is critical that we commit to search for the truth. Avoiding those questions is a choice in itself: to disregard God. And since in life we often “reap what we sow,” that is a risky decision indeed.
How Do Our Values Fit In?
That explains our worldview, but what are beliefs and values?
We may have beliefs that come and go, and they can be either helpful or harmful to our well-being. One of our most debilitating areas of weakness may be the negative, limiting beliefs that hold us back in life, sometimes without our awareness. Over time, our beliefs may solidify into values if we commit to them, even if subconsciously by allowing them to continue to affect us.
Our beliefs shape our perspective of our day-to-day environment (circumstances, events, and people) and affect how we think, how we feel, and how we act. Our perspective is how we see our immediate “world” around us from our point of view, while our worldview is how we see the world overall in the long term.
Our values are stable, long-lasting beliefs about what we deem as important. They become the standards by which we order our life and make our choices. We can develop an effective worldview by choosing good values to give us direction in life, help us make thoughtful decisions, and take next right steps. In effect, we put the puzzle of our worldview together one piece at a time.
There are 5 universal values that should be considered as we build our worldview: meaning, identity, contribution, community, and purpose. These enduring principles have been esteemed for centuries, and they also align with modern, evidence-based research on attributes that enhance our well-being. If we like, we can use those universal values to help choose supporting values such as:
- Meaning: spirituality, significance, fulfillment, effectiveness, righteousness, belief, faith, joy, truth, wisdom, hope, goals, vision
- Identity: humility, integrity, self-awareness, repentance, self-control, contentment, peace, transformation, trust, courage
- Contribution: determination, achievement, creativity, adaptability, attitude, patience, learning, efficiency, progress, excellence
- Community: compassion, love, kindness, empathy, generosity, loyalty, respect, equality, justice, mercy, family, connection
- Purpose: selflessness, service, example, peacemaking, motivation, perseverance, vocation, ministry, calling, passion, legacy
The worldview and values we select affect how we think, feel, and make choices. If we select wisely, it will help us move in a positive direction in life toward peace, joy, and purpose. If we choose foolishly, we will eventually face the consequences of those decisions. And if we ignore the process entirely, we are allowing our short-term, impulsive lifestyle choices to determine who we become.
How We Grow Up – Part 1
Young people today are exposed to an incredible amount of stimulus, information, and experiences. They have become more technologically savvy, socially aware, and sophisticated as a result.
But their brains still develop and work the same way as with previous generations.
Experts in neuroscience—the study of the brain—agree on the concept of neuroplasticity which is the ability of the brain to “rewire” itself to learn and develop new habits. It is a well-proven medical fact that our repeated thoughts and choices reshape how our brain operates, which enables us to continue learning and improving. That development may slow down a bit as we become elderly, but we can continue growing and changing for our entire life. It is indeed true that “old dogs can learn new tricks.”
It is also worth noting that neuroplasticity can become our greatest friend or our worst enemy.
It is our friend if we continue learning our whole life, discovering insights and epiphanies along the way and using that knowledge to live life better. Neuroplasticity is our ally to help us grow, change, and mature. We can “un-learn” bad habits and create new good habits by repeating our thoughts and actions consistently over a period of time.
Neuroplasticity is our enemy if we repeat harmful thought patterns or allow negative self-talk or actions to continue, because those patterns become more and more embedded in our brain structure and chemistry. That’s one reason why our beliefs and values are so important, because they shape the choices we make and the actions we take, whether we are conscious of it or not along the way.
Modern advancements in neuroscience have proven the medical aspects of how this works, but that truth has been understood to some degree for centuries. For example, Buddha said, “We are what we think,” and Aristotle stated, “We are what we repeatedly do.” For each of us, learning about neuroplasticity can be an epiphany, and putting it into practice to live life better is a breakthrough.
(… this article will be continued in Part 2 coming next week!)
Question: Do you feel you are finished “growing up” or is that still in process?
Action: See Part 2 of this article next week and “Get the Blog” if you don’t now.
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