Maturity is identity plus time

We’ve always been told that comedy is tragedy plus time.

Maybe the equation of the self works in a similar way.

What if maturity was just identity plus time?

After all, knowing who we are isn’t the hard part. Knowing how to use who we are to navigate the losses, rejections, failures, mistakes and transitions life throws at us, that’s the real work. Opening ourselves to the wisdom that would otherwise run silently beneath our feet.

My friend once gave me some interesting feedback about the twenty year story of wearing my nametag every day.

Scott, you now look so different from those pictures of the younger version of yourself, that it’s like you’re telling a story about someone that you used to know. You’re introducing the audience to a person they will never meet.

Blew my mind. And he was right. It’s not the nametag, it’s the heart behind it. Always was.

The man who slapped on that very first sticker in college has the exact same skeleton as the man who writes these words today. But the muscles, skin and energy that surrounds the nametag is unrecognizable.

In fact, looking at earlier versions of my nametag, even the handwriting itself looks different. It’s a fascinating physical record of my own personal growth. As my sense of identity has evolved and solidified and grown more robust, the typography itself has become different too.

The font appears to be thicker, clearer, cleaner and more centered on the paper itself. The lines of the letters are truer and more properly spaced out. Just like me.

It’s been my identity that carried me through my great seas of doubt.

Once again, maturity is identity plus time. Pretty cool piece of psychological math.

Nametags are a helpful artifact to track that process for me.

What about you? What physical object can you refer to as a mirror of your own growth?

Remember, maturity is always some kind of return to reality about yourself.

It doesn’t have to be a nametag, it just has to stick.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
How have you used your identity as a survival tool?