If you google, ‘Does growth matter?’ you actually pull up a bunch of articles on economic growth. Interesting. My decades of experience as a Psychologist, Life Coach, Chaplain, etc. set me to thinking about very different kinds of growth—the growth that results in us either being happy or miserable in life. If we want to live fulfilled, meaningful, and happy lives we cannot afford to not think about growth. This is the reason I label myself a ‘growth coach.’ Growth matters in economics, business, family, retirement, physical health… well, in everything.
I believe that growth matters throughout our lifespan. When we’re younger we recognize that we need to grow. For example, it’s obvious (when I look back) that I didn’t understand ‘love’ at age 5 or 10 in the same way I did at 15 or 20. Much less what I can still grow into understanding about love at age 40 or 80 after going through years of life, marriage, parenting, divorce, etc. while experiencing, pondering, and talking with others about the nuances and ramifications of love.
Yet sometimes as we grow older we seem to slip into believing we’ve ‘arrived’ and no longer need to grow, whether this is in one or many categories. We’ve evaluated the different options in parenting, religion, finances, relationships—you name the category—and have ‘arrived’ at our conclusions. We might not state this explicitly but it’s what we often live out. It’s a trap we ALL fall into. Our curiosity and openness with which we enter the world slowly erodes, and if life is painful enough hopes and dreams are replaced with cynicism and depression.
We might not think of growth as a matter of life or death, but it is. Literally. Science shows us that all of our cells are either in a growth or decay mode, all the time. There’s no such thing as a stagnating cell. If a cell is doing anything less than growing it’s decaying. If you leave something in decay mode for too long you end up with death. Our options are growth or death. I think this applies to all of life.
One of the easiest places to grasp this concept is in area of our physicality. If I am not active and engaging my lungs and muscles, doing my cardio and strength exercises, I lose what I’ve already gained. I can come back from a week of vacation and try to do my regular routine and feel sick to my stomach. In one week I can lose much of the progress I spent weeks gaining. Or consider rock climbing, I cannot truly enjoy climbing if I’m not regularly on the wall, I lose my strength and find myself unable to climb what used to be easy and bring exhilaration. If I don’t exercise throughout the winter, when I go to climb a 14er, or hop on my mountain bike, I struggle until I get in shape again or my body relearns balance. Professional athletes are always pushing themselves to be faster, stronger, etc. and they don’t do it by laying on the couch, they achieve it by dedicating themselves to growth mode. In my mind this all equates to the same thing, I’m either pushing toward growth or I enter decay mode.
Yet our bodies are not the only place we either grow or decay. I believe the same is true about other aspects of our humanity. For example consider a relationship which receives little effort. I think most would look at this relationship and see ‘decay’ mode, and recognize this is not the kind of relationship to hold up as an ideal. Sadly, many people look at their parent’s marriages and see exactly this. For those on the fortunate flip side, you might look at a relationship full of vitality, energy, curiosity and see an example of what you hope to achieve. This kind of relationship is in growth mode, and I guarantee you it’s taken hard work. You can tell when you listen to how one person speaks to another, looks in their eyes, body language, etc. if they are experiencing a relationship that is in growth or decay mode.
Or consider the mind. There’s an obvious physical aspect to ‘mind,’ and there’s a natural process the brain goes through called ‘apoptosis’ when neural networks are not being used. Simple example? I studied Differential Equations in college, then switched from engineering to psychology. Almost 40 years later, I would not be able to describe what ‘diff eq’ is anymore.
Let’s consider yet another level of life and call it spiritual (though I would agree with Zen Buddhists who might feel that assuming dualism between the physical and spiritual is not helpful). Regardless of what you think of (or feel) when someone says ‘church,’ or ‘Bible,’ or ‘Jesus,’ or ‘Christianity,’ try to throw out the worst for a moment and think of the Bible as an ancient book of wisdom. There’s a repeated theme in various parts of the Bible which plays out along these lines: people are told that if they have eyes to see they will see more, if they ears to hear that will hear more, BUT if they don’t use the faculties they have, they will lose even the little they now possess. These statements are fascinating to me and I believe absolutely true, i.e. science and experience fully support them. As a Psychologist, Coach, Chaplain, father, family member, etc. I have witnessed so many people over the years who are close minded and don’t want to grow. As a result, they lose even the little they started out with regarding wisdom in any category of life. If we think we have and know it all, there is no reason to keep our eyes and ears ‘open.’ Anyone who has thus ‘arrived’ is actually in decay mode.
Buddism has a similar idea in the beginner’s mind concept. The expert knows everything, and it’s the beginner’s mind of openness and readiness that is applauded. “If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities; in the experts mind there are few… In the beginner’s mind there is no thought, ‘I have attained something.’” (Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind). I love how this is represented in the character of Jake Sully in Avatar. His recognition that, ‘My cup is empty. Trust me.’ is what made him able to learn and grow. Emptiness leaves room for growth.
Finally, let’s go back to science and our ‘beginnings,’ and consider how Patricia Kuhl, who studies infant brains and linquistics states that infants have a ‘celestial openness.’ When we enter the world we are open. We know we have not arrived. We very quickly start to lose our curiosity and openness. In any area of life where we become ‘closed,’ we lose our ability to grow.
Thus, if we are convinced we have arrived, we need to reverse out of it and recognize that we have not, or we will decay. Life is growth or decay. GK Chesterton said that everyone wants to be progressive, but the most progressive person is that one who, when they recognize they are on the wrong road, turns around. So let’s try to turn around and back out of any roads where we feel we have “arrived.” Arriving at the end of a road is called a dead end for a reason. It’s the same for all of our humanity. Let’s try to stay away from dead ends, and move instead toward openness, curiosity, and growth.
I recognize that even this thought of growth or decay can be overly dualistic, but hopefully you get my point: If we are not open and actively growing, the most likely result is decay and death. So yes, I believe that continuing to grow is literally a matter of life or death in way more than economics.