Understanding the Physical Makeup, Mental Makeup, and Emotional Makeup of Teenagers
By 1980, the world population had grown to 4.5 billion people. By the year 2000, there will be about 7 billion individuals in the world.
Yet even among all those billions of people, there is something special about each person. You are the only one. You are one of many at your school. You are one of twenty or thirty in your class. You are one of several people in your family. And you are one of over 200 million people in the United States. Among all these people, you are an individual, the only one of your kind.
Such things as your sense of humor, your shyness or lack thereof, your ability to learn, the color of your eyes and hair, and your height are your characteristics. Many of your traits come from your parents. They were given to you at birth. These traits are called hereditary. You also develop other characteristics as you grow older. These properties are called acquired. You can gain new traits as long as you live.
Physical makeup
People have much in mutual, but it is their variances that make them individuals. Even identical twins do not all have the same acquired characteristics. One twin may like to talk; the other speaks less.
Each person inherits physical characteristics from parents, grandparents and even more distant ancestors. These inherited traits are called human heredity. Hereditary traits, which are carried in the sex cells, are the basis for the overall physical makeup of each person. They also influence physical development throughout life.
From childhood, however, a person’s development is also influenced by his surroundings. This environment, which includes the food one receives, the people one meets, and the events that take place, is called the environment.
Environment and heredity together create the individual characteristics of a person. For example, heredity dictates that your body can only grow to such a height. But to reach that height you need the right food, rest and exercise.
Mental makeup
Your mental abilities help define who you are. This ability is concentrated in your brain, the mass of nerve cells located in your head. The way it works is not yet fully implicit. But it is known that your brain is what allows you to understand and learn. This facility to comprehend and learn is called intelligence.
No two people are alike in intelligence. Your own intelligence depends partly on heredity and partly on how you developed from birth. Scientists believe that no one ever uses her or his brain to its full potential. Always there is room for mental growth.
It’s up to you how much brain power you use. It also depends on you to decide which parts of your intellect you want to cultivate.
There are many different kinds of mental abilities. Another person may be very good at math. Another may have a particularly good memory.
Some people are extremely capable at stating their thoughts in writing. Individuals fluctuate in what areas of wisdom they are decent at and what they are not. Therefore, the mental capacity of each person is special.
Emotional makeup
Some are lucky. The others always look concerned. Some are kind and generous. Others are critical and hard to please. All these people differ in their emotional makeup. How did they get this way?
People are born with different personalities.
Everyone has the same simple desires for physical, mental and emotional courtesy. How these wishes are met distresses your emotional makeup.
Some people are lucky enough to have their needs well met. Others are less fortunate. When a person’s inherited traits blend well with that person’s environment, the result is a stable emotional makeup.
Your attitudes are part of your emotional makeup. Attitude is an erudite way of seeing things, people and events. Attitudes are learned from their family and friends. You expose your arrogances in your likes and dislikes.
Most of your actions are created on your manners. Positive attitudes that show you think well of yourself will be a big help when you’re trying to make a decision. But negative attitudes, which are usually based on fear or insecurity, make it difficult for you to make decisions and work with other people.
Most feelings can be thought of as some form or combination of three basic emotions: love, anger, and fear.
Any kind of emotion has its place in human life. Love can easily please and understand you. Anger can make you go out and try to overcome obstacles. Fear can help you avoid anger. No one should be ashamed of feelings. But we are each responsible to ourselves and others for how we express ourselves.
One of the areas of puberty is to rise the aptitude to deal with feelings in socially suitable ways.
