for love, which would seem to put the emphasis on the relational aspect of being human. I like that, too. We could say that human beings are wired for work, play, creativity, self-expression, generosity, and many other things. But, for me, growing seems to be a way of describing a central dynamic of human existence that encompasses all of these other aspects of life. And growing is what makes being alive so interesting, fulfilling, and challenging.
Growing is that aspect of life that pushes us beyond mere survival, even beyond adaptation—to become more than we need to be, to become more of what we want to be. It is that aspect of ourselves that motivates us to lean into life’s challenges, even though we might be frightened or intimidated by them. People with a strong drive toward growth tend to live life with gusto. I am not talking about people who love bungee jumping, high-stakes gambling, or whirlwind transcontinental travel. In fact, I would describe myself as someone who has a strong drive for growing, and yet, as my sister says, I am risk averse when it comes to adventures like these. I prefer staying at a bed and breakfast over camping, and I like to play poker for M&M’s rather than real money. What I am talking about is the human orientation toward development where love of learning and the desire to face life honestly, earnestly, and passionately win the day, more days than not. If you are a person well-endowed with the natural urge toward growth, then you know that curiosity, hard work, and learning through experience make life worth living.
This may sound pretty straightforward, but here’s the rub: Sometimes—perhaps more often than we would like to admit—the urge toward survival is in direct conflict with the urge toward growth. This may not be readily apparent, since one would think that growing is simply the logical next step once you’ve got surviving down. But it is often not so. Growing fundamentally involves risk taking. It requires that one let go of that sense of security so essential to survival.
To use a very ordinary example, growing means taking off the training wheels from the bicycle. We lean into the potential of developing more independence and competence but must run the risk of falling over. Our safety is threatened. This challenging dynamic is at the heart of almost all of life. Often we prefer to play it safe by hiding out in what we know, rather than letting go and learning something new. It feels more secure to avoid change than to risk trying and failing. It feels smarter to keep our thoughts and feelings to ourselves than to share them in an intimate way.
While the balance between the urge toward survival and the urge toward growth varies from person to person, we all feel these tensions. At some level, we are all drawn to living in our bubbles and hiding under the proverbial covers, comfortable with what we know and protected from the dangers of what feels like a big, bad world out there. And yet, at the same time, we are drawn out of our bubbles by curiosity and a longing to engage.
Both Sigmund Freud and Melanie Klein believed that all people struggle with these two psychobiological forces—what they called the life and death instincts. The life instinct is that internal force that pushes us to grow and develop, to take risks so that we can be all that we can be. Here, growth is prized for the sense of satisfaction, enrichment, and deeper security that it brings. The death instinct is that force within that pulls us toward homeostasis. Here, self-protection is valued more highly than self-development. It is better to hide under the familiar rock and die than to venture out into the unknown world and be killed.
Think of Darwin’s evolution of the species. Those species that survive over time are those that can engage the challenges of life—adapt, evolve, and develop ways to thrive despite obstacles. Those species that become extinct are those that cannot adapt, those that shrink from life and wither away. Klein believed that all people have a relative balance between the life and death instincts, some leaning more toward growth and others leaning more toward self-protection.
Since you’re reading this book, you must have some relative leaning toward the life instinct. Otherwise, you wouldn’t bother. I have been concerned that some people would be turned off by the ideas in this book because they are too hard. I don’t mean that what I am writing about is hard to understand, but the ideas are awfully hard to live. As I understand it, there is this fundamental truth about life: If you want to grow, you must take Robert Frost’s “road less traveled.” Or embrace the Buddha’s principle of nonattachment. Or discover Jesus’ narrow way. These wise ones all understood that a meaningful life is fundamentally about change. You’ve got to take up the cross and follow. I don’t mean that you have to walk in their very footsteps, but that you have to get up and get going on your own way, knowing that hard work, determination, and sacrifice are inevitable parts of the process of growing.
If we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit that we don’t like this idea at all. When the alarm clock goes off at 6:00 a.m., it is as if I am hardwired to hit the snooze button. For nine minutes (sometimes eighteen minutes), I give in to the death instinct. I want to stay in the womb, to cocoon in the warmth and protection of the blankets. I dread the day. I feel persecuted by its demands. I forget how much I love life and the satisfaction that it brings. And yet, soon after I rise, shower, and have my delicious coffee, I begin to wake up to the life instinct. Optimism, energy, and curiosity gain in strength. It is the inevitable rhythm of my morning. Each day, I must engage in this mini-struggle with the part of myself that wishes to shirk from life’s challenges because I have temporarily lost contact with its many rewards.
I am always struck by this dynamic as it plays itself out in an ordinary way between fitness trainer and client at the local gym. Have you ever watched (or ever been) the client who whines throughout her workout, complaining to her trainer, “Why do you make me lift such heavy weights?” Or, better yet, “Why do you always make me sweat?” It is a frustrating yet rather hilarious moment when one realizes that one cannot get the benefit of the workout without the strain, that—in fact—one has intentionally put oneself in that position in order to grow. Deep down, we know that the saying is true—no pain, no gain—but that doesn’t mean we have to like it!
Resistance to growth is something that we don’t like to recognize in ourselves, yet in many ways it is essential to acknowledge if one really wants to grow.
Resistance to growth is something that we don’t like to recognize in ourselves, yet in many ways it is essential to acknowledge if one really wants to grow. The reality of resistance to growth explains why so many of us try to change but cannot. In Romans 7:15, the Apostle Paul speaks about this common problem when he writes, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” Many of us relate to this frustrating experience. However, when we can step back to acknowledge it as Paul did, we gain a valuable perspective. We begin to see how we actually contribute to our own troubles, fueling the fire rather than doing what we can to put it out.
It takes a lot of effort for us to grow because, as we can tell from observing ourselves, we human beings tend to unconsciously invest, over and over, in supporting the status quo, even if it is problematic. Freud called this the repetition compulsion, a highly charged dynamic in our inner worlds that keeps us trapped in vicious circles, making the same mistakes, hitting the same dead ends, and backing ourselves into the very corners we are trying to get out of. The conscious voice says, “I want to change!” and yet the unconscious voice says, “It is too dangerous! Keep doing what you know. You haven’t died yet.” This unconscious train of thought shows one of the key reasons why we resist change: We are afraid of dying.
Now that may sound a bit dramatic, but the inner world is populated by some rather dramatic characters, the first and foremost being our baby selves. While the most adult part of our personalities might have good judgment and motivation for dealing with reality—and might be quite invested in growing—there is a central part of the personality that, just like an infant, comes into the world frightened,
