How to 'Grow' - The Hard Truth About Growth

our societies are attached to a phrase which you can be a bit too easy to assume we understand the talk is of people growing and of having grown which alludes to some kind of important psychological Evolution and development but what does growing in this sense really involve what is it that we are developing a capacity to do when we so-called grow and what are we leaving behind and crucially how much might we train ourselves to grow a little more and a little more quickly what we may essentially be pointing to with the idea of growth

is the ability to stop responding to situations in the present through lenses unconsciously distorted by our psychological histories and especially the quirks and biases bequeathed To Us by our invariably somewhat complicated childhoods a person who grows is likely to be able to look more fairly at other people and situ situations and to recognize the extent to which they might be aggravating conflict or heaping unwarranted suspicion or ruining their chances because they bear within them presumptions shaped by hard to recall experiences of loneliness fear betrayal and humiliation a person who has grown will more readily be

able to check their first unhelpful responses to things and reach for a more complicated objective set of explanations it may not always have to be their companion's fault perhaps a mistake was in this instance innocent it might be their role to say a small sorry maybe they've misunderstood what was really being meant to grow is to acquire the courage for new sorts of questions what if I were repeatedly defending myself against closeness and hope or what if I was using busyness to block encounters with my own mind or what if I secretly maneuvered to end

a relationship prematurely because I felt safe with feelings of isolation and rejection or what if I was running away from opportunities to show myself authentically to other people these questions can in personal life be what we might in science describe as capern questions that involve a fundamental rethinking of one's place in the order of things the more one grows the more one might have to give up a certain sort of confidence and certainty not in the name of meekness or self-hatred but for the sake of a newfound skepticism a patient modesty and a humorous Readiness

to riely acknowledged error and admit to fragility a person who has grown might operate with a vivid sense of how much they misund understand they might appreciate their fear of intimacy and joy they might more often say I don't know or let me perhaps think more about that even sometimes on really special occasions they might say I think you may have a point and they may be more receptive to friendships built around a recognition of vulnerability and anxiety what Spurs growth is unfortunately almost always pain we grow because we were fired and then already shattered

we're finally able to look at what colleagues around us might have found Difficult about us for many years we grow because we lost a major love and at last as we weep in a corner of the airport lounge we see that we might have been far too guarded or demanding or frightened we grow because in an hour of need we can't bear to be alone anymore and realize as if for the first time what friendship could really be for the greatest sign of growth might be a Readiness to calmly take on board the scale of

one's silliness how many basic things one's still learning what a child one still is a person who has grown won't see anything offensive at all indeed will stoically accept the idea that they have been very often indeed over some quite major things if we can put this politely a bit of an idiot and they will be intensely committed to trying to be rather less of one in the precious time that remains