Personal Growth

What is it?  And how do you DO it?  

Personal Growth is the nuts and bolts business of life.  And it’s required! 

It’s the process of “Becoming” … fully human … fully US … fully YOU ... fulfilling our true potential … and it’s an ongoing enterprise.   Whatever age or stage of life we’re in, each of us is a kaleidoscopic conglomeration of unfinished business.   

Anyone who has stopped and gotten off the train is incomplete to a fault.

 

"The life so short, the craft so long to learn." 

Hippocrates 

Sometimes it’s important to analyze and upgrade or completely change our assumptions, expectations, and perceived entitlements – even things we consider “Givens” … even things that appear – for all practical purposes – to be working fine.  Unperturbed moments don’t last, our knowledge base and experience are extremely limited, and our personal view of how the world works is patently biased.  We each have “tapes” playing in our heads with our own version of how the world works.  However, … 

“It ain’t necessarily so.”

George Gershwin

Porgy and Bess 

In case it’s been some time since you encountered the delightful John Godfrey Saxe poem “The Blind Men and the Elephant”, it graphically illustrates our short-sightedness / blind-sightedness and you can find it here:  [http://www.constitution.org/col/blind_men.htm] 

Four complementary approaches to “Becoming All That We Can Be” are suggested: 

1. Applying “If …, Then … “ conjecturing logic.  This is how computers work and it’s how scientists conduct much of their research.  “If THIS is true, and THAT is true, then we might reasonably expect a natural extension of THIS and THAT to be true.”  Or: “If X works THIS way, and I do Y, THEN I can pretty well predict Z will happen.”  This is hypothesis generation and hypothesis testing.  NOTE 1: Sometimes W happens and we have to revise or discard the hypothesis.  NOTE 2: For computers, there is only one answer already programmed.  [While major strides are being made in designing and delivering artificial intelligence, a complete leap to abstract reasoning remains elusive – and often not just with computers!]  NOTE 3: The “If …, Then … “ process can be corrupted by gratuitous, self-serving indulgence: “IF I skip doing my homework and hang out with my friends, THEN I will have more and better friends!” versus “IF I skip doing my homework and hang out with my friends, THEN my grades will suffer, THEN my parents will be upset, THEN my future options will be more limited, THEN I will be disappointed … etc.”
   Rule # 1
   The person I first most don’t want to fool – or BE fooled – is me.
    
   Rule # 2
   The person I second most don’t want to fool – or be fooled – is YOU. 
    
2. VECTORING: This is the art and act of choosing our target goals wisely and then laying down specific tracks, steps and stones for wherever it is we’re going and however it is we’re going to get there.  Rockets, missiles and space ships engage continuous vectoring, using both planet Earth and celestial object reference points to guide their trajectory.  (It’s important to keep our feet on the ground, but to “… take something like a star to stay our minds on and be staid.”  [Robert Frost]) 
3. Engaging “Blue Sky” VISIONING.  In this approach, one is unbounded by what is or has been and is free to envision how things could or should be: “Wouldn’t it be terrific if we could do X, Y and/or Z to make life easier, better, more sustainable, more productive or more exciting!”   
4. Making it happen!    
   “It ain’t right ‘til it’s RIGHT,
   And it ain’t done ‘til it’s DONE!”
   Pastmaster

One of the higher level personal growth competencies required for successful passage – and toughest to get right – is EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE (Ref. Daniel Goleman, Bantam Books, NY 1995, 342 p.).  EI competencies include: 

• Self-motivation / Initiative / Taking control of /responsibility for one’s own Destiny
• Maintenance of “right reckoning” / Virtue
• Persistence
• Anger management
• Delayed gratification = Impulse management
• Mastery of vices, “natural inclinations”/cravings/passions
• Dealing with disappointment
• Ability to feel and extend empathy
• Ingraining Hope and a sense of Ultimate Surmountability 

However, for all of life’s complexity, the key to successful journeying is a surprisingly simple formula:  

Do the best you know, learn more, know better,

and keep doing better for the duration.

Quartermaster 

“If you do what you’re supposed to do, life will turn out the way it’s supposed to be.”

Inscription on an old farmhouse calendar 

“The theory of democratic government is not that the will of the people is always right, but rather that normal human beings of average intelligence will, if given a chance, learn the right and best course by bitter experience.”             W.E.B. Du Bois 

“I am driven by two main philosophies: Know more today about the world than I knew yesterday, and lessen the suffering of others.  You’d be surprised how far that gets you.”    Neil Degrasse Tyson