I don’t know how you feel about it, but it seems to me that growth ought to take place far more rapidly and obviously than what it sometimes does. We live in a society that desires—and frequently demands—immediacy.
The fact is, however, that personal growth tends to take a long time. It comes a little bit at a time over a long period of committed focus on it.
Here’s what I’ve discovered about it: personal growth is far more about the deliberate process of engaging each day than it will ever be about a final result.
You and I can learn all of these principles—we can memorize the definitions and quote the experts and even make significant strides in our own lives to example the best of ourselves—but on any given day, for a wide variety of reasons, we can find it easy to forget it all.
It is not enough to know these principles. Our task is not merely to learn material … our task is to choose daily to participate in our own growth.
And that, my friends, takes a lifetime.
So … we must be patient. We must recognize that our becoming is about the journey. Most importantly, we must remember that if we fall away or forget to participate in our own growth, we can always come back. Every day is a new day and we have a lifetime to work on it.
Integral Development Forum 