Growing as a Person

Growing is hard. It takes long and it’s uncomfortable at times and it can hurt. That applies to both physical and mental growing.

Growing as a person generally means trying to improve yourself, whether that is emotionally or spiritually or physically. Or even all three at once.

It’s tough though. It’s tough to be mature and do the big scary adult things instead of hiding under the covers and pretending they don’t exist. It’s hard to turn the other cheek. It’s annoying to be the bigger person.

Growing is one of the hardest things you’ll ever have to do. And the worst part is you’ll never stop. We grow until the day that we die. If we don’t, we’ve failed. But that’s also the best part. To know that even though you haven’t gotten to [insert milestone here], you’ve still got a chance to reach it. Because growth is a journey and you’ve still got miles of time before the finish line.

Another annoying thing about growing? It’s not linear. There are good times and bad. Months can go by without any sign of progress and then suddenly, you hit two milestones in the space of what feels like five minutes. (We call these growth spurts).

I’ve grown a lot this year, even to my own very biased eyes. I’ve done a lot of new things and I have progress to show for it Alhamdulilah. I should be happy (and I am!) but most often, I’ll be measuring my growth on someone else’s scale and grumpily whining about how far I have left to go.

This is a mistake.

Do not compare yourself to other people, please. Don’t ever think that your happy moment is any less valuable because someone else seems to be having a bigger one. Your milestone is yours and it was hard to achieve and you absolutely deserve to celebrate it.

Growing is good. Recognizing growth is even better, even if it seems a little small at the time. I promise, one day you’re gonna look back and realize that that little first milestone was the start of a fantastic journey.