When I was a child, I spake as a child but when I became an adult? Nowadays it's hard to grow up.

The King James version of the Holy Bible, 1 Corinthians 13:11 states: "When I was a child,  I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child but when I became a man I put away childish things..." In Christian tradition, there should be a line of separation between childhood behavior and adult behavior. But today, such is often not the case. Children don't have the same opportunities to grow up, sometimes because they can't find meaningful ways to interact with others and sometimes because their parents don't allow them to experience the raw challenges of life.

Put simply, growing up is hard to do in today's society. Some of us never grow up because we have not had reason to or we don't have equal opportunities to do so. Our parents shelter us, eliminate the need for us to be self-reliant, and protect us from everything with rants and raves against most anything. 

Back in the day, self-reliance was expected. At 13, you found a summer job and contributed to paying household expenses. At 18 you found a higher-paying job and moved out of your parents' house. Of course you had options: go to college and find grants, loans or scholarships to pay for it; join a branch of the military and learn a skill or choose military service as a career; find a job, get married and raise a family. 

In the process of living and working towards a future, you learned about yourself and about working and relating to others. You had no access to the internet, so everything you learned was from reading or from interacting with family, clergymen, mentors and peers. You read the Bible or you read writers like Kahlil Gibran (Lebanese-American poet and author, famous for his book The Prophet which is highly recognized for its insights and wisdom.) 

Nobody said it is easy to grow up, take responsibility and become self-reliant, but where there's a will there is a way. Childhood and adulthood are not the same and the sooner we understand this, the better for our society. We need to step up, wo/man up and put away childish things. We need to accept our role in building a better society. If not you and me, then who shall it be?

Kahlil Gibran was born in 1883 in Lebanon and died in New York in 1931. His family emigrated to the United States in 1895. In his early teens, the artistry of Gibran's drawings caught the eye of his teachers and he was introduced to the avant-garde Boston artist, photographer, and publisher Fred Holland Day, who encouraged and supported Gibran in his creative endeavors. A publisher used some of Gibran's drawings for book covers in 1898, and Gibran held his first art exhibition in 1904 in Boston. In 1908, Gibran went to study art with Auguste Rodin in Paris for two years. He later studied art in Boston. While most of Gibran's early writing was in Arabic, most of his work published after 1918 was in English. Gibran's best-known work is The Prophet, a book composed of 26 poetic essays. Resource: (www.sahajaculture.org)