Are Your Growing?

Someone recently asked me if I was still growing or not.

I lied and said yes… but inside I was saying no.

I really have not been growing. I am stale, stuck where I am, able to do much of what I currently do with my eyes closed.

I try to rationalize myself and say that I am growing, just very slowly. And it is true that over that past year I have made great strides. But am I growing now?

Not really.

I am not pushing myself to the limit. I am not trying new things. I am stagnant.

Where is that MBA and Ph.D. I have always been talking about. Where is the business I used to have but now don’t run? Where is the non-profit that I abortively started in 2004?

Nowhere to be seen. Just pieces and fragments… reminders of the past that is incomplete.

True, I have had many hard times. I was laid off. I got sick and couldn’t work for 8 months. I was homeless for awhile, briefly living in my car, then at friends, and then when even my friends turned me out, sleeping in an office that someone let me use for business, they not knowing I was sleeping there at night, showering and changing daily at the tennis courts at the city park.

Being down to my last dollar and spending it for food.

I have had my struggles in the past 7 years. I have come a long way since then. And I have had to grow and adapt just to survive.

But am I growing now?

No.

And perhaps its time I start.