This week I dropped my youngest son off to college. After twelve years of guiding him through the ups and downs of public school education, my son opened his wings and took flight as a college freshman. I stood there asking myself, “Where has the time gone?” It seems like only yesterday that we were making out his wish list for Santa. Now, he’s hundreds of miles away from home. No immediate family. No major airport. No tried and true support system. He is out there navigating the world, on his own. We Facetimed last night and at the end of the call I thought to myself, “He seems to be okay.” He could be easily crying his eyes out in the shower, but at least when we talked, he seemed to be together. And for him–as the last child– that’s a big deal. Let me explain why…
My three children are extremely different from each other. Not in a bad way, but they have their distinct characteristics. My daughter, who is the oldest, is the responsible, “go get it” child. She is the resourceful, “I’ll find a way to make it happen” child. My middle son is the politician who wants to take the world by storm. He has the gift of gab and uses his words to get what he wants. My youngest son, however, has always been the reserved one. Brilliant and witty, but shy. He’s always needed that extra push to put himself out there. But something happened to that quiet guy I’m used to seeing. This week, I saw him laughing and being assertive. I saw him standing up for himself and taking risks. Somehow my shy son transformed right in front of my eyes. My boy had grown up.
In thinking about this moment, I couldn’t help but parallel that to how we grow in our lives. Here I was thinking that my son didn’t have those qualities inside of him when that wasn’t the case at all. The laughter and assertiveness was always there. They didn’t magically develop out of nowhere. They appeared when he was placed in an environment where those qualities could be seen. That was the lesson for me. Growth is a constant of our human experience, even if we don’t give ourselves credit for it.
Many times we down ourselves for the things we don’t see within. Maybe it’s discipline in your finances or assertiveness in your relationships. It could be any number of things. We often spend our times comparing ourselves to what we see exhibited in the lives of other people. I wish that I could be like him. I wish I had the confidence that she has. The issue with comparing, however, is that it robs us the ability to recognize what is residing within us, right now. Instead of celebrating who we are and what we have become, we are always looking for the “next” level, the next achievement, the next accomplishment. This constant searching does nothing but leave us feeling emptier and less fulfilled in our lives.
Growth looks like celebrating your wins and not focusing upon your losses. Notice, I did not say ignoring your losses; I said not focusing upon them. There is a difference. To ignore our losses is an act of self-betrayal. None of us are perfect! Life is punctuated by both moments of joy and struggle. To focus only on the “ups” without facing the “downs” is to willfully blind ourselves to the complex reality that forms our human lived experience. The challenge, however, is not to focus on them. Learn the lesson from those difficult places in life and move on. Don’t stay there in the loss. Don’t live in the pain. Don’t take up residence in the valley. Take the hit, but refuse to give up. Keep walking. Keep growing. Keep moving. That’s growth.
No matter how little it may seem, moving beyond our limits is worth celebrating. A win is a win! Whether it is by one point or ten points, it doesn’t matter. We celebrate this all the time in sports, but rarely do we extend that same grace to our own lives. We want to diminish our personal wins with qualifications (“It wasn’t that big of a deal,” “There wasn’t much to it,” “Anybody could have done this”) instead of setting in the fact that we succeeded, that we leveled-up. It is much easier for us to be our own critics than our own cheerleaders– and if we are to grow, that perspective has to change.
Here’s what I’m learning: never allow other people to cheer for you louder than you cheer for yourself. Be proud of your growth, no matter how small it is. The flower does not compare itself with other flowers; it simply grows to the best of its ability. Your blooming isn’t a competition.
When we take this approach to life, we will realize that we are growing all the time. That’s what this week with my youngest son taught me. My son didn’t grow into this assertive, outspoken individual overnight; he had been growing right in front of my face and I never realized it. Whatever growth we experience in our lives doesn’t happen instantly. It is a feat that has been happening all the while, underneath the surface. It just takes the right environment to appreciate what has gone undetected.
Graced & grateful,
jsb