| | Mike,
You said, "I believe Nathaniel defined mature self confidence as knowing that you have the capability to learn whatever you need to know to achieve your goals."
I don't remember that, but it could be accurate. I do remember him talking about self-esteem as an experience of confidence in ones ability to learn whatever one needs to know. And what you pointed out, looking forward to the future, and the willingness, even eagerness to learn new things is a hallmark of that aspect of self-esteem. I've also found that those people who are the very best in an area, the real experts, are not just confident, but usually open to learning, and not in the least defensive.
Sometimes we don't complete our maturity in some areas because nothing has required us to do so. I suspect that some people find becoming a parent does that - stimulates them to mature in ways that hadn't been seen as lacking before, but in hind-sight, clearly were. The first time I was responsible for managing a group of people, I found myself maturing in ways that wouldn't have occured to me before.
I suspect that is more helpful to consider maturity as most often the absence of immaturity - process complete in that area. I further suspect that immaturity is almost always a kind of defense in action - some part of a person stays young in some inappropriate, non-helpful way.
The child we once were was capable of some things that needed no improvement - an endless curiosity, a capacity to learn, an ability and willingness to laugh, an imagination, etc. In a great many other areas we needed to mature, to improve, to add on. For the most part you can divide those things we needed to add or improve into those we acquired through natural learning, and the rest from some kind of stimulated learning. That is, in some areas we just naturally mature - in other areas we are strongly stimulated by peers, parents, school, etc., to change and mature. And, for nearly everyone, in a few small areas, we should have matured more, but still haven't. This is important, because it relates to where we are as democratic society, picking candidates, and laws, and yet reality hasn't forced us to be as self-responsible as it once did - say, a hundred years ago.
The most important aspects of maturity lie in the ways we use our consciousness - exercising will to focus, being open to information that tells us when we need to act with greater responsibility, or integrity, or honesty, or assertiveness - the self-esteem pillars. That would be the strongest relationship between maturity and self-esteem and an eagerness to learn new things.
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