Growth

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life? 

From Mary Oliver's poem, "The Summer Day"

As I've come to see it, it's all about growth. I heard the other day that matter is either growing or it is decaying. Those are the only two choices. Of course, as a long-time gardener, I know that, I've just never seen it put so succinctly or scientifically. And now I know why something else that I heard years ago made so much sense. It was a famous television therapist (who will go unnamed for many reasons) who once said that in a year, a person would either be worse off or better off, but they wouldn't be the same. He further explained that if a person was in fact the same, that they were worse off (decaying) because positive changes (growth) had not occurred. Serendipitously, I heard him say that the same week that I first read the Mary Oliver quote above, and the same week I turned fifty. Like puzzles pieces coming surprisingly together, these three things combined to alter my life drastically.

Grow or decay... I can only hope that whatever it is that moves this life will continue to choose growth... (until that last breath, anyway, when the inevitable physical decay leaves no choice!)

Happy Thursday.