Growth Ain't Easy, Mate
Posted: 14 Jun 2025, 21:20
Ahh, personal growth, that nebulous pursuit so often peddled by self-help charlatans with their saccharine platitudes. One must consider, however, that genuine development of the self is not a mere checklist of affirmations or a sprint toward some illusory 'better you'. It is, rather, a slow, arduous slog through the mire of one's own limitations, a process akin to chiselling marble into something resembling art. I speak from the vantage of 52 years, where I have seen both students and kin stumble through this labyrinth with varying degrees of grace.
In my own family, I recall my late father, a man of stoic disposition, who never spoke of 'growth' yet embodied it through sheer persistence. He was a historian, and his habit of revisiting the past not to wallow but to extract lessons was a quiet education in itself. I’ve adopted this in my own way, though my battlefield is philosophy. Each evening, over a glass of vintage Bordeaux, I dissect my day’s interactions, not for vanity but to interrogate my biases. Have I been too dismissive of a student’s half-baked Nietzschean musings? Perhaps. But to grow, one must confront such petty failings with brutal honesty.
Too many conflate personal growth with external validation, chasing promotions or social acclaim like moths to a flame. Fools, I say! True progress lies in the internal, in refining one’s ethical compass or deepening one’s grasp of life’s absurdities, as Camus might nod to. I’ve little patience for those who think growth is a TikTok trend or a yoga retreat. It’s a lifelong dialectic, a conversation with oneself that never truly concludes. So, I sit with my books, my claret, and my thoughts, chiselling away at the rough edges of my intellect. If you’re not prepared for such rigour, well, perhaps stick to motivational posters. Lol.
In my own family, I recall my late father, a man of stoic disposition, who never spoke of 'growth' yet embodied it through sheer persistence. He was a historian, and his habit of revisiting the past not to wallow but to extract lessons was a quiet education in itself. I’ve adopted this in my own way, though my battlefield is philosophy. Each evening, over a glass of vintage Bordeaux, I dissect my day’s interactions, not for vanity but to interrogate my biases. Have I been too dismissive of a student’s half-baked Nietzschean musings? Perhaps. But to grow, one must confront such petty failings with brutal honesty.
Too many conflate personal growth with external validation, chasing promotions or social acclaim like moths to a flame. Fools, I say! True progress lies in the internal, in refining one’s ethical compass or deepening one’s grasp of life’s absurdities, as Camus might nod to. I’ve little patience for those who think growth is a TikTok trend or a yoga retreat. It’s a lifelong dialectic, a conversation with oneself that never truly concludes. So, I sit with my books, my claret, and my thoughts, chiselling away at the rough edges of my intellect. If you’re not prepared for such rigour, well, perhaps stick to motivational posters. Lol.
