I’m stronger because I have grown.

I tend to think of trees as something that “Grow”. Years pass, and every year, while the tree is healthy, it grows a little bit taller, wider, denser. Forests are constantly changing; from birth to nonexistence, and then back to living again. The same rule can be applied to all flora and fauna, I suppose. The seasons too, even (warmer, colder, rainy, dry). The idea of growth is easily “seen”, but how do we know that we have actually grown metaphysically? After all, we stop growing (at least vertically) usually by the time we are in our twenties. How are we to measure the amount of growth we experience? Is it through the things we have had to deal with in our lives? Is it the recent promotion at work? The incredibly hard 10 pounds that we recently lost?

I guess, after all, growth can only be defined individually, and only by each individual that experiences it. So, in essence, WHAT IS GROWTH? I think each of us can probably answer this question, but we will each find a different answer in the end. And that, friend, is real growth. It is being able to individually take responsibility and account for the things we have done towards our own personal growth.

One unique quality of personal growth is that once we achieve the growth that we once desired, there is a moment, like a flash of lightning, where a little lightbulb lights up over our heads and says, “You just accomplished what you have been trying to do ALL THIS TIME!”. Ta-DA! This, perhaps, is the most satisfying moment in life. Being able to do what we once have never known how to do, weren’t shown how to do; to make fire out of sticks and rope when you have no matches.

Like I said, it is easy to look out the window and see how the landscape changes, how the seasons change, even being able to see how others change; but it takes incredible strength to not only be able to become that change that once seemed impossible, but to embrace it and recognize it in ourselves.