16-year-old Mentality

Our brain goes through stages of development, just like the rest of our body does. For example, did you know that until you’re a certain age, you believe that you can change genders if you want to? Eventually, our minds grasp the concepts of reality. Each of these phases of development happen naturally. All of them, that is, except one.

It’s called the 16-year-old mentality. At sixteen, most of us believed we were invincible. The world couldn’t touch us because it revolved around us. Everything was black and white. We believe that we’re old enough to understand how the world works, when in truth, we only see a sliver. Coming out of this mentality is a choice. Some people may go through this phase change easily, but others fight tooth and nail to stay in the ignorant bliss and romanticized ideas of the world. I was one of those people.

It all can be initiated by one experience. I was already married, and my husband and I decided to go camping for a family reunion on my mother’s side. Because, being still in the 16-year-old mentality, there wasn’t really a choice as to whether or not going was the best choice for my husband and me. I just accepted the expectations of me (16-year-old me) as truth and what I should be doing. (Looking back on it now, I feel sorry for my poor husband.)

There was an incident one evening at camp. My mother and a cousin got into an argument about something, and sparks started to fly. I witnessed the whole thing, and clearly, we needed to take sides. I, of course, took my mother’s side. It was a clear duty to validate my mother by putting down my cousin. Not because my mother asked us to, but because that was my understanding of sticking to your family. A little later, I was speaking with my husband, trying to get him to validate my mother. But, he wouldn’t do it. He didn’t take sides, because according to him- my cousin did nothing wrong. She only shared an opinion my mother didn’t agree with.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My husband was refusing to take my mother’s side. This was unacceptable. I didn’t know what to say, so I left the tent. By this point, it was getting really dark outside, and people were starting to go to bed. I just started walking.

I don’t know how long I was standing out by the lake. It was apparently long enough for my husband to start worrying about me and start looking for me. But I was in the middle of a major dilemma. Do I still take my mother’s side and be at odds with my husband? (Such was the all-or-nothing state of mind I was frequently in.) Or do I side with my husband and betray my mother? Finding my own opinion about the whole ordeal never entered my thoughts. But then the truth hit me- for the first time, I realized my mother was wrong. She had made a mistake. She wasn’t perfect.

This blew my mind. I went in search of my cousin to apologize for my mother, and I consciously took my first steps into leaving the 16-year-old mentality.

Coming out of the 16-year-old mentality was not a pleasant experience for me. It made me question a lot of things about who I was, and who I wanted to be, about the world around me, and even about my family I had lived with for so many years. There were a lot of moving parts inside my head. The biggest one was being able to accept my past self when I was ignorant, and accepting my current self. Suddenly, nothing was black and white anymore. There were so many layers of explanation that I couldn’t really accept anything at face value anymore.

In church just a couple of weeks ago, we were discussing the creation and the fall of Adam and Eve. We spoke of how perfect their world was before the fall, and how crappy everything seemed for them after the fall. Yet nobody in that class talked about how horrible of a decision that was. Were it not for the fall, we would not exist. And it hit me- Adam and Eve had to make a conscious decision to accept a life of hardship and despair in order to know the good from the evil.

A choice was made- to pass through sorrow and uncertainty- to really be able to understand the good and the evil. I think we similarly must make a choice. It must come more naturally to some than to others- and I know there are yet others who decide to stay in a 16-year-old mentality because it feels safe, and they don’t see a reason to leave it.

For me, leaving the 16-year-old mentality was the biggest eye opener of my life. It made a lot of things a lot harder for me- a lot of decisions more difficult to make. But I wouldn’t go back to the way they used to be. I wouldn’t go back to my eyes half shut because I sincerely believe that, though difficult as it is, it helps me a lead a richer, deeper, more meaningful life. I wouldn’t change that for the world.