What Does It Mean “To Grow?”

“Don’t go through life, grow through life.” — Eric Butterworth

“Idon’t want to grow anymore,” my oldest son tearfully pleas.

It’s 3 am, and growing pains shoot from his tiny feet to his ankles, so I’ve been rubbing his soles, half asleep, for 20 minutes now.

“I know, love,” I drowsily respond while he grimaces, tears falling on his thick, sky-blue comforter, “but growing is just a part of life — even though it hurts sometimes.”

It surprises me how those words spill with ease, like a tipped can of sea breeze-colored paint on a stark white floor.

Then again, with all of my intense life changes, I realize “growth” has been continuously on my mind for months.

But what does it mean “to grow?”

If we really get down to it, growing encompasses much more than growing pains: It covers physical, spiritual, mental, and developmental expansion.

Think about it — even after adding inches; we continue to change and evolve.

Merriam-Webster cleverly breaks down the word GROWTH into four main definitions:

To spring up and develop to maturity.
To increase in size by assimilation of material into the living organism or by accretion of material in a nonbiological process (such as crystallization).
To develop from a parent source.
To pass into a condition: BECOME.

My favorite is definition number 4 because it applies to all of growth’s complexities.

“To pass into a condition: BECOME.”

This definition applies not only to my son and his painful and necessary physical transformation but to the spiritual, mental, and developmental aspects of growth.

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Now, I also recognize not everyone holds an intense focus on self-growth. In fact, I previously wrote a whole article on this concept titled “I Only Have Around 30 Years Left. I Have no Desire to Change.”

And, as the Harvard Business Review so eloquently observes, “To muster the grit needed to persevere through change, people must believe there will be a consequence for not changing.”

Regardless, we all hold the commonality that at various points in life, we physically and developmentally GROW.

However, growth isn’t always a tangible experience, and cramped legs and feet are only part of the story.

As I rub my son’s feet, I think about how my children and I have grown.

Specifically, I reflect on how my authentic evolution (an ongoing process), continues to positively impact not only my own essential being but the truths of my children.

I think all of this as my sleepy son softly whispers, “I don’t want to grow up.”

And it is then when I kiss his pink-flushed cheeks, ruffle a lock of his silky hair, and bluntly state, “I get that. I do, but we all have to grow up sometime.”

He then bobs his head, and I am not sure if this is a nod of agreement or of a six-year-old on the cusp of sleep — passing “into the condition” of a dream.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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