Growing Pains

Who are you? How do you define yourself?

When introducing ourselves we often do so by explaining what we do for work. It seems that the determining factor to the questions above hinge on what we do for a living. And although our work does comprise the majority of our waking hours, there is so much more to a person than their chosen profession.

However, in this topsy-turvy world of smoke and mirrors, things are rarely what they seem. We are hesitant to focus on our character-traits and the essence that make us who we are. We find it difficult to explain a reason why we are put on this Earth, and what makes us different.

For this reason (among others) I have often taken off with my backpack, leaving behind all I know (job, friends and even family) and everything that made me comfortable to put myself in new circumstances where I am attached to nothing and no one. To start from scratch, in a manner of speaking. In that new space, the true inner voice can be better heard and one’s definition of self becomes simpler.

I believe that a driving force for existence is growth.

The online dictionary defines growth as:
“Development from a lower or simpler to a higher or more complex form; evolution”

In my own life growth is a major priority. Often, if things are going great and I am very comfortable it means that it’s time to move on to something different; in order to continue to grow, new challenges must be undertaken. Moving on can be geographical, work related or can even be a cue to consider social involvements.

Fear is the enemy of growth. We fear change. We fear challenges. We fear many things. Often we live our lives as if what we fear is reality. Therefore, we place restrictions on our possibilities and potential accomplishments according to these fears.

Life is a process. Things change constantly. Maintaining the status quo means not only is one not moving forward, but in the act of standing still as everything else advances, one is essentially being left behind!

We can learn a valuable lesson from gardens. In maintaining a healthy and lush garden, we know that things need to be weeded and pruned. This “weeding” and “pruning” sessions allow for the dead and unnecessary parts of the plant to be cut up and cleared away so that more energy can be directed to the areas that are growing and vital.

This is also true in our personal lives. We often feed energy into aspects that are wasteful- these parts, though we may be hesitant to admit it, may be dead or no longer vital; such as relationships, a job we hate, or pain or anger at something that happened long ago. These negative aspects which sap the energy from our lives need to be “pruned” so that we can grow bigger and stronger.

How do we measure how we’ve grown or even ensure that we are growing at all? Jewish wisdom teaches us that the mitzvot (Biblical obligations) that are most challenging are the ones where we have the greatest potential for growth.

We all know that the areas where we have exerted most effort are often where we find the most reward. Things that come easily to us are rarely appreciated. However, the pain we undertake and survive gives us depth and courage to move forward as individuals with greater capacity to give and to love.

We cannot always control the events in our lives; yet we do control our responses to them. I remember a 3-day trek my mom dragged my entire family on back when I lived in South Africa. During the second day, there was a large river crossing. The challenge was to swim across a wide river channel connected to the ocean, while floating our backpacks ahead of us. The idea of this terrified me, as I have always been a weak swimmer and am afraid of currents and deep water. So when our group arrived, I decided my fear would not hold me back. I was the first to jump in and cross to the other side. Of course, I’m only human- and I did have to sit back and calm my pounding, fluttering heart while the others made their way across to catch up with me. This is the way I’ve always tackled my fears – head on. They say to “look before you leap”, but I think the best technique is leap before you have the time to think- otherwise you get too nervous and can be paralyzed by fear. Nike got it right – Just do it!

How we face the curveballs that life throws at us is what determines our character. We grow when we achieve something that seemed difficult or impossible to us. If we try and fail, then we’ve failed. Big deal. But if we never try at all…then we will never know.

Yes, there might be pain in failure, but to quote a wonderful, yet little-known play The Teahouse of the August Moon:
“Pain makes man think. Thought makes man wise. Wisdom makes life endurable.”

I’d like to give us all a blessing that we face our deepest fears head-on, and that in the challenge our true strength is revealed. We all have the Divine Spark within us and are connected to the Source of all.

May we understand with clarity that the G-d-given potential within each of us far exceeds even our wildest dreams.