I learned this principle through my experience being a premedical student and a medical student. It’s safe to say that most medical students are smart and hard working. If you can get into medical school, you have passed a sort of intellectual hurdle that a significant portion of the population cannot. However, when I was younger, I used to think that people who were smart and capable are somehow automatically mature. This is a fallacious form of thinking that can result in some poor decision making when interacting with others. To be clear, success and intelligence do not correlate well with the overall maturity of a person. There are brilliant adults who possess the maturity level of twelve-year-olds and highly mature people in this world who may not be the sharpest tool in the shed.
I think where this principle comes in handy is with people you want to form meaningful relationships with, whether it be romantic or platonic. We live in a society that prioritizes intelligence, prestige, and material success and often pushes aside maturity as a worthy attribute. Yet, for a relationship to be enduring, it is critical that both parties be on a similar maturity level, and I think traits like intelligence and material success may not be as important as we think. In my youth, I think this was a source of disappointment in many of the relationships that I forged. I’ve always considered myself and have been perceived by others to be someone who possessed a high level of maturity. When I was younger, I prioritized other attributes when forming friendships, whether it be attractiveness, intelligence, ambitiousness, etc. But as I’ve gotten older and those initially formed relationships have essentially failed, I’m starting to change what I prioritize when meeting new people.
The Ivory Tower 
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