Growth Isn’t about Putting In More Effort

When we head into a new year, we always want to reinvent ourselves. Vision boards, spreadsheets and calendars all point toward an ideal that is not yet actualized. But after a few months into the new year, we’ll realize that we’re still stuck with the same person, rotating around the same neuroses that are holding us back. When this happens, we beat ourselves up.

But there is something deeply absurd about beating ourselves up over goals we did not achieve. When we do this, our minds are splintered into two. One is full of higher aspirations, while another is entrenched in perverse pleasures. We stupidly believe growth is a total triumph over our lower selves, without recognizing that those qualities that we think are shameful, unproductive and lame are still a part of us.

In the second volume of Xenophon’s Memorabilia, he wrote:

“He is not wise who has not tried the ugly and the bad; for then there is nothing he has conquered and nothing that would enable him to assert that he is virtuous.”

It’s easy to assume we have virtues we do not possess, especially in our culture that prizes performance over embodiment. We might even fool ourselves into thinking we’re more perfect than we are by performing excellence, but once reality interferes, our unresolved past, our wounds around love and our tireless pursuit of validation will all rush to the surface, erasing any progress we thought we had made. This is called backsliding, and it happens a lot during the first few months of a new year.

It's easy to view this backsliding as a failure, but we can also view it as a gift of trying “the ugly and the bad”. Only through these moments of internal conflicts can we be in dialogue with our true selves: a mixture of aspirations and fatal flaws that are essential to our characters. Whereas if we deny our lower qualities while still asserting that we’re perfect, the cycle will never end. Our shadow will continue to veer its head during hard times. Our progress will continue to disintegrate when we think we’re getting somewhere. Our past will continue to haunt us. This is called self-sabotage, and it happens when we can’t seem to make a change stick.

So perhaps, growth isn’t a conquering of our lower desires, but a dialogue with them. We have to be willing to disarm our false virtues and view hardships as useful trials to test how much we’ve actually grown. Am I less angry when someone talks behind my back? Am I more calm during an argument? Am I less resentful when I see someone else succeed? When we’re left with no dignities to defend, that’s when we become interesting: a beautiful blend of flaws and talents who’s not afraid to show it all. This is called self-acceptance, and true growth is only possible beyond this point.

So perhaps growth isn’t about adding new activities, new plans and new versions of ourselves. It’s a moment-to-moment awareness of our flaws and a constant commitment to balance them with our talents. In its essence, growth is subtracting who we think we are to get to who we really are. At its core, integrity is about letting go of the fantasy of being perfect. And in summary, maturity is all about unearthing ailments we didn’t think we had. This is called self-honesty, and no beating ourselves up is possible after this.