Saturday, January 31, 2009

Age, Maturity and Respect

For the past 4 years I've had this on and off battle with supposedly not earning the respect from my peers... probably because of my age and their perception of my maturity. I've tried so hard from being a leader at youth group to participants older than me, to coordinating and youth group and also various other worship and youth teams, to learn to change from an immature 17 year old to what I think is a much more mature 20 year old (who still sees the light-heartedness of life).

But... this issue keeps resurfacing....

I've come to realise after being told on countless occasions by my elders that being old doesn't necessarily mean being mature, and that someone can still be young and act in a way which others can respect. My question is: Even if you show you are mature and that you have changed, can people change their thoughts and stereotype about you and translate that into the way they view and act towards you? Or will people just carry on, keep singling you out for everything, and viewing you as the one who doesn't know anything.

I guess the only thing I can do on my part is to keep running the race, with my eyes fixed on Jesus.

1 comment:

Elaine said...

"Even if you show you are mature and that you have changed, can people change their thoughts and stereotype about you and translate that into the way they view and act towards you?"

Good question. I think...eventually yes. But "eventually" may mean years for people to change their thoughts about you, and then more years for them to act differently towards you.

Keep running :)