Growth Is the Only Evidence of Life

This only means that growth for a personal interpretation to a person means that
we must valueourselves in this world on how to cope with environmental changes
in order to survive. Such as,healthy lifestyle, proper and healthy diet as well as
regular exercise. These simple things wemust consider for ourselves in order to
grow and live. We must know how to deal with evercircumstances in our daily
lives through positive behavior. We are in the 21st century, wecontinue to live and
continue to grow by adapting to changes. But growing is pretty hard, notonly to
the physical aspect but also mentally. Physical grow is the law of nature and
mentalgrowth is a personal concern. Growth involves change and change
involves pain.We must grow mentally and emotionally, such as according to the
Dalai Lama, " To let peopleclose to us means we both hurt them and are hurt by
them. Such is life, but we have to be opento recognizing our faults, apologizing for
them and moving on. Forgiveness is as important in the
life of the “forgiver” as it is for the life of the “forgiven.” However, it takes
strength of character to
look at ourselves. Often we have to take the criticism of others on the chin,
especially if they aresincere about it. The Dalai Lama tells us that often times our
enemies are better for us than ourfriends, because we can learn more from them.
That is very true if painful."Off course physical growth is given, but mental and
psychological growth is the most criticalone. We must consider it mostly in our
lives. But growth is sometimes incomplete without ourinevitable relationship with
God.These are the things that describes how growth is an evidence of life. Life
that we are currentlylive in, and life that we continue to give beauty.
Growing Up

Growing up is always hard to do. That we grow is a law of nature.

Newman once said that “growth is theonly evidence of life” but I cannot
remember where he said this. Growth involves change and
changeinvolves pain. We’
ve all heard of growing pains. A son of a good friend of mine who has
really put on a
great spurt of growth recently had to attend the doctor with “growing
pains,” which the doctor pointed out
was all part of nature.I suppose our spiritual or psychic or mental life
mirrors this physical growth. However, modern medicineand modern
psychology would not make such a bold split between mind and body as
did Descartes.Rather it sees some sort of complex interrelationship
between them both. Some modern scholars talkabout the body-mind
–
especially scholars in the area of psychotherapy and meditation.I have
always liked
metaphors
. Concepts were enabled to my mind by the forging of metaphors, by the
pushing further (the “meta” part of the word) of the signs and symbols of
language (the “
-
phor” or“phorein”{Greek for sign} part of the word!), often forging
abstract thought out of concrete images. I intendto write a little about
this metaphorical drive within language at a later time. The metaphor I’d
like to us
e
here with respect to this particular post is that of the “onion.” I think the
growth of the personality may be
likened to growing extra layers as we progress throughout life. This
links in with the
PAC
theory

of
Tran sa ctiona l Ana lysis
nicely
–
as outlined in the book
The Games People Play
by
Dr. Eric Beirne
.
Then I’m reminded of another famous metaphor in the form of a
paradox by the great Romantic
poet
Willia m Wo rdsworth

and this goes: “The child is father of the man.” This line occurs in the
following
beautiful little poem:
MY HEART LEAPS UP WHEN I BEHOLD
My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky:So was it when
my life began;So is it now I am a man;So be it when I shall grow old,Or
let me dieThe Child is father of the Man;I could wish my days to
beBound each to each by natural piety.1802.Wordsworth's sentiment is a
poetic statement of an otherwise commonplace observation: what you
are,and feel, and think, and believe as a child creates a path you will take
into adulthood. Even more thanthis, the adult I now am I have built upon
the child that I was. Also the adult I now am I have built upon
theadolescent I was and so on up until old age. We never really do stop
growing. And so we grow and change and develop. And all of this is
attended by varying amounts of growth pain
(natural), “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” (all the
unwanted and unlooked
-for accidents,
natural disasters of all kinds, “acts of God” as Insurance Policies like to
call these latter), the making ofmistakes, and boy, don’t we all make
them. We make mistakes at work, at home and even on the way
between the two. We make mistakes with our friends, not alone our
enemies. We also make mistakeswith those whom we love. There is an
interesting line of a song which goes:
“you always hurt the oneyou love, the one you shouldn’t hurt at all.”
Google tells me that Willie Nelson and The Mills Brothers
sang this song. There’s a lot of truth in this simple lyric. To let people
close to us means we both hurt
them and are hurt by them. Such is life, but we have to be open to
recognising our faults, apologising for
them and moving on. Forgiveness is as important in the life of the
“forgiver” as it is for the life of the“forgiven.” However, it takes strength
of characte
r to look at ourselves. Often we have to take the criticismof others on the
chin, especially if they are sincere about it. The
Dalai Lama
tells us that often times ourenemies are better for us than our friends,
because we can learn more from them. That is very true ifpainful.There
have been times in all our lives when we have hurt the ones we love. As
we go on in life we try to
make amends as best we can. Life is difficult, we all know that. Like St
Augustine once said let’s make a
hospital of this world of ours and try to heal as many people as we can. I
am reminded also of the wordsof the great
Ba lla d of Reading Gaol
by
Oscar Wilde
. To meditate upon that ballad is very good for thesoul indeed. One
cannot doubt how much Oscar suffered in prison and in his life
thereafter. His wordscan cut to the core at times. They are words that
resonate with the above words of the song sung byWillie Nelson. I loved
this poem ever since I first read it in an anthology by the Christian
Brothers atschool. Here are three consecutive verses on love and the
price paid for it:Yet each man kills the thing he lovesBy each let this be
heard,Some do it with a bitter look,Some with a flattering word,The
coward does it with a kiss,

The brave man with a sword!Some kill their love when they are
young, And some when they are old;Some strangle with the hands of
Lust,Some with the hands of Gold:The kindest use a knife, becauseThe
dead so soon grow cold.Some love too little, some too long,Some sell,
and others buy;Some do the deed with many tears, And some without a
sigh:For each man kills the thing he loves,Yet each man does not die.
Obviously Oscar is stretching language by metaphor here. For all the
lovely things I’ve killed I’m sorry.Like Oscar’s famous char
acter in
The Picture of Dorian Grey
one often feels like running along the roof
tops and shouting “forgive me” to the world! Even if those hurt don’t
hear, at least you’ve made the effort.No one ever promised that growing
up was easy or even that we’d ever be “really grown up!” Does that
rare state even exist?
Above I've placed a picture of the first snowdrops in my garden, early
February 2007. They are atth e h eigh t of th eir g rowth b efore
b eing killed off b y winds an d frosts etc. Such
is th e u ltimate p riceof g rowth . Mayb e we' re all just part of
this eterna l cycle o f life?
Personal growth as the meaning of lifePrimer to the meaning of
life
In principle, meaning of life is the same for everybody: As multifaceted
as we human beings may be,once our existential needs are covered, we
all finally strive for the same thing: We want to beperpetually happy and
satisfied and we want to be able to live our lives without worries and
cares.This search for harmony and inner peace, for self-realization, for a
higher consciousness or howeverwe like to describe this state, as our top
objective, is practically the same in all the different methodsof
representing
human needs
. Not least the advertising industry also frequently attempts to makeuse
of this striving for happiness and harmony.
Rules to follow for a sensible way of life
From our experience we know that wherever we are or whateverwe do
certain rules prevail. On the roads these are the trafficregulations, in
football the rules of play, in nature there are thenatural laws. For those
that respect these rules the correspondingactivities or deeds are easier to
accomplish than for those whoviolate these rules and therefore have to
be reprimanded in oneway or another. The same applies to living on
earth: True meaning of life and personal growth canonly be experienced
if we follow certain rules.The most important rule on the earth which all
the earth's inhabitants must follow says: «
Everybeing has an equal right to live here, to develop here and to carry
out his tasks here
».
Meaning of life:Personal growth to develophigher consciousness