You know when you get sick and can’t get out of the house for a couple days, maybe not even out of bed? At first it feels good. I mean, you’re sick, so that’s not great, but the chance to relax would otherwise feel like a blessing.
But then after some time, you get restless. You feel like you need to get out.
The same sort of thing can happen if you spend too much time behind the same workstation at work or in the same car or plane for a long trip. You feel restless and need to get out.
Well, the same sort of thing happens in my head too. If I spend too much time inside myself, I get restless and need to get out.
I’ve said before that one of the marks of maturity is the ability to think of others instead of just ourselves: the capacity to feel for others, to consider how actions or circumstances might affect them, to see from their perspective. That plus the wisdom to apply it to the decisions we make – that, to me, is maturity.
That’s the outside part anyway.
When I slip into the rut of my own head, especially when I keep driving down it for an extended period of time, I feel maturity passing me by. I get restless, and I need to get out, same as I would after spending too much time cooped up in a car or a cubical, same as I would after falling sick for days in a row.
