What Is Our Responsibility to the Process of Growth?

 

My boyfriend-turned-friend-turned-boyfriend-turned-friend-turned-pandemic-boyfriend-turned-friend who sometimes sees things I don’t see in myself – good and bad –  points out the flaw in my drive to embrace vulnerability.

“Sometimes you use vulnerability as an excuse to avoid being vulnerable.”

Another friend and I ask the question, “where is the line between radical acceptance and giving up?”

I ask myself, “When is the pursuit of authenticity really just an excuse? Am I spinning my wheels with more and more questions in avoidance of the work that growth entails?”

Three sides of the same strange self-reflective coin that I try to jam into the slot of “figuring it all out.”

I want to solve it. I want to solve me.

I try to radically accept that I cannot be solved. But yet, I keep trying. I radically accept that I’ll keep trying.

Is there inherent worth in the question that is followed by another question followed by another question?

Questions all the way down

What is our responsibility to the process of growth? Does self-reflection somehow absolve me from hard work as long as I keep asking more questions? Is there growth in the knowing, or only growth in action?

Can you grow via contemplation alone?

I catalogue my inadequacies. There are many.

I laugh about them. I’m terrified of them. I wonder if I’m too lazy to change while I wonder why I should have to. I begin to doubt myself. How do you love yourself without shrugging and saying, “I present you my deficiencies, take them or leave them because I am who I am”?

When I hold out my fears and worries as presents to you all, am I owning my idiosyncrasies and eccentricities or am I just trying to take the edge off of insecurity by getting out ahead of vulnerability? If vulnerability is something you produce in order to control what comes next, is it no longer vulnerable?

 

How do you become a better version of yourself, while staying true to who you are?

It reminds me of the question so many people have when they start an SSRI or other antidepressant — will this change the “me” in me?

What is the difference between self-improvement vs changing yourself to be more palatable while forsaking the essence of who you are? When is it ok to ask others love you for flaws – in spite of your flaws – and when are you choosing fear through inaction?

One thing I feel sure of is that sitting still without self-reflection in order to avoid the sometimes painful process of growth is not the answer.

I just finished Lilly Dancyger’s Negative Space. Near the end of the book she says, “[…] but the searching, the deepening, and sharpening of the questions is what carries the inquisitive, creative mind through life.”

So here I am, sharpening question after question with no answers in sight – and sometimes, maybe that’s its own sort of growth.