'Personal Growth: Part 1'

CAERS SUBSTACK ARTICLE #45

‘PERSONAL GROWTH: Part 1’

CAERS SUBSTACK AFRTICLE #45

The phrase ‘personal growth’ is commonly used and it carries with it a number of possibilities. It often implies a process of maturing, like an acorn becoming a mighty oak. But what does it mean for humans? Is it simply getting bigger and more complex like an oak? Or is there more to it than that?

As discussed in article #40 (‘Narcissism and Altruism’), it may involve learning to care more for others by putting one’s own needs on the back-burner; altruism over narcissism and selfishness. Growth sometimes requires self-sacrifice by letting go of one’s desires, or at least delaying their gratification. It may even go so far as accepting short term pain for long term gain. For example, it is said that if you seek truth, you may find comfort; but if you seek comfort, you will not find truth. Does personal growth necessitate increasing one’s ability to tolerate pain?

In particular, does it have anything to do with fear, including fear of pain? As we ‘grow’, does it equate to fearing fewer things or fearing them less? Or like the hero, do we simply not allow fear to paralyze us from doing the right thing?

Sometimes the thing we fear most is simply change itself. Change by definition always involves loss, and loss frequently involves letting go of something known for something relatively unknown, but hopefully better. But we never know for certain that it is better at the time, so there is a risk that we might be worse off. The future is impossible to predict exactly, so it is not surprising that we might fear change in principle. That may help to explain why personal growth can be such a difficult and slow process.

But does fear completely explain it? Is stubbornness, the resistance to change and growth, simply fear taken to the extreme? Perhaps inertia plays a role as well, a tendency to just wallow lazily. Nature likely imbues us with a predisposition to go for the low-hanging fruit whenever possible—why waste energy when it is such a valuable, and often limited, resource? However, in a species as tribal as ours, is there a group dynamic as well? A reluctance to change unless the tribe approves it or itself changes? Why risk being shunned by following the beat of one’s own drum when it is so much easier to simply go along with the crowd?

Or is there a secret belief that we are unable to change and grow, or that we lack the resiliency to endure what might be a long and arduous process? Do we believe that only some people are meant for personal growth and we are not among them?

Personal growth likely requires some degree of introspection and self-reflection—what am I thinking or doing now that I want to be different in the future? That entails judging our present selves, and that means acknowledging our faults, mistakes and shortcomings. Is it a sense of guilt or shame or pride that makes personal growth so difficult to undertake? A deep unease that we might not be able to be forgiven for our imperfections, most importantly forgiven by ourselves?

Even more frightening, personal growth might challenge us to face not only our relatively benign and innocent deficiencies, but our dark side as well. It is there where our more malignant thoughts stay hidden, sometimes even from our own consciousness. We may recoil in horror when that side of others is revealed; but part of that horror is a deep and silent realization that it is not so dissimilar from our own.

All crises involve some degree of pain but they often provide a chance for personal growth, too. This has certainly been true for the pandemic—most of us have experienced at least some discomfort the last three years. But how many of us have capitalized on the opportunity it has provided for the deep reflection that is part of personal growth? Despite the suffering, have there been any silver linings in the COVID cloud? If we can find them, they may help to make us, and our world, better in the long run.

Like the search for truth, personal growth isn’t always the most comfortable of journeys. But it may capture a crucial aspect of what it means to be fully human.

J. Barry Engelhardt MD (retired) MHSc (bioethics)

CAERS Health Intake Facilitator