June 14, 2021
When I spend time with people who are a decade or so older than I, a common theme is expressed: we don’t grow up in our good times, we grow up in our hard times. We do our growing when its inconvenient, when it’s uncomfortable, and when it’s not predictable.
One friend shared, “When we’re younger, we expect life to follow a straight line. But uncomfortable detours are in our path for a reason. Maybe it’s to teach us an important lesson about ourselves or to guide us toward a better opportunity. When I look back at my life, it’s easy to see that the things that were upsetting turned out to be valuable direction changers.”
Her words connected me to a personal journey that I titled the 3 G’s – Grit, Gratitude & Growth. My 3 G’s detour refined my inner-qualities that now equip me with unflinching courage, self-discipline and purpose-filled passion. In order to gain it, I had to do the work—no one else could do it for me.
I was taught the layered learning mindset: take one life lesson; build another life lesson on top of it; and another; and another; and another. This intentional – and continuous decision creates depth in our lives and width in our perspective. It moves us to believe that something is happening; that some kind of growth is taking root.
Consider how a tree grows. We cannot see it grow, but it is growing. They say that slow-growing trees bear the best fruit, and that same principle applies to people. We may not always see our branches getting wider, but our roots are getting deeper.
When we look closely at the rings of a tree, often we can perceive more than just the length of its life. Woven into the variation of color are clues about years that were rich with rain, as well as those that were dry. Signs of bounty, perseverance, and survival. This piece of nature feels especially apt as we look back at the themes of our lives. There is peace that comes with acknowledging we are not meant to have rings that measure evenly from start to finish. But that in the varied size of each ring - in the ever changing conditions of each year – is the real proof of living. – Magnolia Journal