Is your life today what you pictured a year ago?
The text explores the concept of growth, contrasting the intrinsic, multifaceted development of living beings with the unidirectional growth of non-living objects. It emphasizes personal development as essential for societal progress while acknowledging that meaningful change takes time and requires mindful effort. Perseverance and realistic goal setting are crucial for achievement and satisfaction.
When born, she was a cute little doll. Her parents were delighted to hear her vagitus. Delicate and appearing like a soft cotton ball, the baby started growing. Soon, the infant started sitting on her own with a much-developed body. They said she was growing.
Growth is an oft-used word, but what the growth is all about?
A small crystal of copper sulphate tied with a strand of horse hair hung in a super-concentrated solution of copper sulphate gains size. Is it growing? Should its growth in size not be considered growth?
The above experiment is taught to children in their basic classes to explain growth. A positive increase in size, mass, weight or any physical possessions is growth. It causes an increase in volume or size. A seed germinates and becomes a sapling, which transforms into a tree or a small baby, like the one described above, becomes a child. They are growing. Their appearance changes as they grow. Crystal in the experiment cited above has also become big. It has, thus, grown in size and, as a result, in mass. In both the illustrations, they are growing in size and appearance, but there is a difference.
The growth in the germinating seed and the baby is not unidirectional. Their growth is multifarious. Living organisms not only grow but at the same time develop. They gain size, mass and appearance. The Crystal, in our example, on the other hand, grew unidirectional, gaining mass and size only. Apart from this, the growth of the germinating seed and the baby is intrinsic and takes place from within while the Crystal grows by the deposition of material on its surface. It is induced, not intrinsic.
The growth of the living world is thus intrinsic and multifarious, involving development, while a non-living object grows by external causes and stimuli. The growth of living organisms is organic.
In terms of human beings, growth and development become all the more important. With the increased cranial capacity of a large brain with ample reasoning and logical power, human beings don’t need only to fulfil their basic needs like food, shelter and begetting their progenies. The dimension of growth and development increases manifold in human beings. Conflicting thought processes and differences of opinions cause churning of thoughts to bring out the best of the best thoughts for implementation of society affecting masses.
A society starts from an individual, who is the basic need of a society to constitute. Two or more individuals make a family, several families become a community, and several communities become a society. The last stage of the ladder is the country. It construes that the growth and development of an individual is necessary for the cascading effect of development. Starting from an individual, it percolates down to the nation. A physically healthy and mentally satisfied individual radiates positive energy, benefitting the family and the country.
Personal development and holistic growth are essential for an individual’s overall happiness. Yet, growth does not always manifest quickly. It can take a long time to see results and achieve goals, and sometimes this process can be overwhelming. This can lead to feelings of desperation and an accumulation of negativity within the individual. So, the focus should be on the core principle, which is duty, often referred to as “Karma.”
Evaluating one’s life within a short period is like asking a person about what one feels changed after a day or two after a fever. Drastic change can be detected and expressed, but perceiving something significant is not practical. It is akin to criticising a government about its performance within a few months. Changing a habit or routine, and feeling the change is relatively easy. If a person, for example, who is used to alcoholism, decides to give up the addiction and start working, he can perceive the changes in his body and the situation. Initially, fighting with the craving and then facing it’s after-effect are quite obvious to feel and tell. After a year he will be in position to tell the effects of not taking alcohol on the body.
Experiencing and expressing the intervening phase and evaluating its fallouts would be easy. One can perceive the changes from every aspect, physical, mental, social and financial. For a person who comes out of alcoholism, it would then be vivid and distinct. He would feel healthier, agile, social and, lastly, much wealthier because of the savings on liquor. He can manage things properly and devote time to constructive thinking and doing positive things, which give him pleasure and self-satisfaction.
On every New Year’s Eve, people make resolutions. They promise themselves to do something or the other during the coming year, but at the end of that year, they often repeat the same resolutions. Isn’t it funny? Resolving has become a vogue. Adopting good things is good but doing it without the proper application of mind can land in a ridiculously ludicrous condition. Things like making good friends, wise company and doing creative things chisel a good personality, trimming the extra burden of useless and unproductive things.
Thinking about a change and working to achieve that is the only thing that can give personal satisfaction and happiness. As has been said above, things do not reveal instantly, and it takes time but doing the right thing is in our ambit. Persistent diligent work to achieve our goal is the only mantra to achieve the desired. Mere picturing about anything is not fruitful. A yearly evaluation and review are necessary. It helps in dovetailing, remodelling and restructuring the work and its mode to fit the goal. As an individual, we get the desired soon, but it is a utopian idea.
One should not bite off more than what can’t be chewed. The goal needs to be set after giving due consideration to the capacity and ability of the person. A whale can’t live on the land nor a fish can climb a tree. Taking up a task beyond the capacity would tax the person and evaluating the success after a year would then be frustrating. It does not mean that one shouldn’t accept challenges. Accepting a challenge is good, for it refines the person and enhances the adaptability apart from the happiness of achieving the task. It is where hard work, dedication and commitment come into play. It is only then the comparison will be rewarding and give a sense of accomplishment.
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