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As a former ESL tutor, it was my job to help non-native English speakers make sense of this tricky second language. I work closely with words all day long, and it’s often a struggle for me, even though I’ve always spoken English.
Take growth and a growth, for example. Both are nouns. Both suggest an increase in size. But depending on how this language is used, it can mean very different things.
Let’s say, for example, I’ve spent the better part of my Sunday evening helping a friend pack up her apartment and stuff her stuff into a tiny, unlit storage facility half way across town by the last of the day’s natural light. Let’s also say I received this call for help barely 24 hours prior and had other things planned for my Sunday evening.
In one sense, we could say that helping my friend when she needed it could indicate real personal growth—given that I would have preferred to chill at home with a good book. We could also call it growth, providing my motivation was done out of a pure desire to help her without expecting anything in return.
On the other hand, we could say that if I only helped my friend out of a sense of keeping score for when I’d need a favor later, and out of an inflated what-would-you-do-without-me, I-always-save-your-ass judgment, then we could rightly call that a growth because it’s an overblown sense of ego on my part; it’s toxic and needs some serious examination. You could even say I might need to cut it out.
The line runs thin between these kinds of growth. Of course motivation plays a huge part in how we show up. A more clear-cut example of this would be demonstrated by one person intentionally cutting someone with a knife. If that person’s a surgeon whose intention is to heal, then that’s one thing. If that person’s intention is to wound, however, then that’s another story.
Yesterday, I went to my friend’s place in a spirit of selflessness and support. And yet when I woke up in the middle of the night with my back tight as a fist, I wasn’t feeling so generous. That’s where growth becomes a growth. When we look back over choices we’ve made and decide that we should have done things differently, that we gave too much of ourselves, or that other people owe us something for our suffering, it festers within us and and works to our disadvantage. It’s more useful and honest to accept that the choices we made were our own and to leave it there without blame or resentment.
We always have at our disposal the opportunity to re-view the past in ways that liberate rather than keep us clenched in bitterness, pain, and victimhood. It’s not about lying to ourselves or ignoring what happened. It’s more about choosing to accept our actions as our own, to be kinder all around, and to let go of the past, which, consequently, helps us live more fully in the present. Like any language, this kind of communication takes repeated practice to gain fluency.
Your call. What are you working with today, honey? Growth or a growth?
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