Week 2 Reflection

My reflection consists of two main parts, the first part explains my mind map about the idea of
adulthood and the second part answers the question - What are the essential qualities of adulthood,
the absence of which disqualify someone as an adult?

Regarding adult's mind map, I've listed down the following main points: responsibility, health,
relationships, personal growth, family, support, work, and life.

The first is responsibility, which I think is the most important point of adulthood, because in a human
society, only when everyone takes responsibility, can we ensure the normal operation of the society.
I think every adult has main four responsibilities. The first one is their occupation, everyone's
occupation brings value to the society, and only when everyone contributes value to the society can
the society function stably. The second is economic responsibility. Adults have the responsibility to
ensure the economic stability of themselves and their families. And the third is family responsibility,
adults have to manage and maintain family affairs, such as household chores and the repair of things
in the house.

Next is health, physical and mental health is also an important part of being an adult because only
a healthy person can take control of his or her life, if a person is not physically healthy then he or
she may be limited in many aspects of life, and if a person is not healthy in his or her mental then
he or she may hurt himself or herself, or hurt the people around him or her. So adults need to keep
themselves physically and mentally healthy.

The third one is the relationship, because the most important point for adults to live in society is the
relationship between people, relationship includes marriage/partnership, a good marriage can make
people more powerful. Relationships also include friendships, keeping a social circle and social
activities can make people more powerful in daily life, and relationships also include family
relationships, keeping good relationships with family members can make an adult's life smoother.

The fourth is personal growth. An adult will not only have professional growth in life but also have
his improvement, such as the improvement of hobbies. An adult with hobbies can better cope with
the pressure of life, and can also let himself have a sustainable investment in things other than his
career. Personal growth also includes self-improvement, and an adult can set a variety of personal
goals so that life can be purposeful.

The fifth one is parenting, of course it is not necessary, the adult can choose freely whether he/she
wants to raise offspring or not, raising offspring includes a lot of aspects, such as taking care of
his/her own children, caring for his/her own children's education and health, and organizing family
activities regularly, all these are the things the adult needs to do, so as to let a teenager have a better
childhood.
The sixth point, which I personally think is the most important thing, is balance, there are many
balances in life, the most important one is work-life balance, if we want to achieve work-life balance,
we need to pay attention to a lot of things, for example, time management and stress management,
an administrator has to arrange his own An adult has to organize his/her own affairs so that work
does not take up all of his/her life and he/she can have time to enjoy his/her own life.

The last idea is support, support here means getting support from other people, there are many
kinds of this support such as emotional support, one can get emotional support from friends or
partners when one has a healthy network of relationships which can make one's life better. The
second one is financial support, when there is a need, an adult can go for a loan such as a loan
from a bank to buy a car or a house, which can make an adult's life better.

Regarding What are the essential qualities of adulthood, the absence of which disqualify someone
as an adult? I would like to illustrate this question from a different perspective.

The first perspective is the social perspective, from the social perspective, I think the most important
thing that an adult can't lack is responsibility, this responsibility is given by the society to the
individual, the adult lives in this society, that is, living in a collective, our daily life can't be separated
from other people's contribution, for example, we take the skytrain every day, then there are people
responsible for maintaining the normal operation of the skytrain lines. So living in a society is
mutually beneficial between people. The best way to realize this mutual benefit is to take on one's
own responsibilities, find one's own place in society, and contribute to society. At the same time,
when an adult takes responsibility, if other adults take on their responsibilities, then everyone's life
will become better together and the society will become more stable and healthy. On the other hand,
if an adult lacks the ability to take on his responsibilities, then he cannot create value for the society,
and at the same time, the society still needs to provide him with value in order for the adult to live
normally in the society. In this case, the person who does not take on his responsibilities not only
fails to create value for other people to make the society a better place, but instead, he is a burden
to the other people who have to do their jobs in the society. Instead of creating value for other people
and making the society better, he is a burden for other people in the society to do their duty. From
the point of view of the society, this kind of adult who doesn't fulfill his own responsibility is not a
qualified adult.

The second perspective is the personal perspective. From the personal perspective, I think the most
important thing that an adult can't lack is the personal growth, which includes his/her own
educational growth and professional growth. In the education stage, an adult will usually go to
university or college to study, so that he or she can get more knowledge. In the university, some
people will utilize the resources of the university to study seriously so that they can have a better
development in the future, but some people will not put their heart to improve themselves in the
university, they will waste their time instead, in this case, I think that they are disqualify adult. In
the career growth, an adult should be self-motivated, i.e., they will take the initiative to think about
their own growth in the career growth. Because only with career development, an adult will have
economic income, create value for society, and at the same time, create value for themselves. If an
adult does not pay attention to his own career development, then the value he creates for himself
and his family will not increase, and he will not be able to realize the goal of his life.

All in all, I think the most important and indispensable thing from an individual and social point of
view is to take responsibilities and personal growth, because one of these two qualities allows people
to contribute to the society, and the other allows people to realize their own goals. The absence of
either of these two qualities will disqualify a person as an adult.