My five-year-old walked into the bathroom the other evening, stepped up to the toilet, slid the little stool out of the way, and then announced, “I don’t need this stool anymore!” Followed by, “The toilet is a lot smaller than it used to be.”

My wife and I smiled at each other. It was a wonderfully funny and truly endearing moment. I pulled myself together and informed the big guy that in fact the toilet is the same size as it’s always been. I told him the hard truth that it’s him who’s bigger. He smiled and said, “Oh, that’s what happened!”

What a cool moment. What an interesting realization. We grow. As if that’s not enough, there ain’t no stopping it! The question becomes, how do we recognize, understand, appreciate, and integrate that growth into our lives in ways that maximizes its capacity for influence over our positive progress?

Sometimes our growth is so obvious that taking advantage of it is simply a matter of course. We don’t really even have to understand, recognize, or appreciate it in those situations. Sliding that stool out of the way wasn’t a difficult decision for the kid. It was hardly even a decision at all. He didn’t need the stool, so he slid it out of the way. It’s like finally being able to reach the high cupboards or pick an apple from a low hanging branch. When we’re big enough to do those things we simply do them. It might be kind of exciting the first few times, but it becomes a norm pretty darn quickly, and usually without much struggle or celebration. There are exceptions…some people are easily excitable, and that’s good, but generally we tend to accept our physical growth without much pomp or circumstance.

What about less obvious growth though? How do we recognize, understand, appreciate, and integrate that? What about emotional, academic, and spiritual growth? I would suggest that those kinds of growth are taking place in similar ways to physical growth, only that they’re often more difficult to see and to measure. As we learn, even involuntarily, our emotional, academic, and spiritual worlds seem to shrink similarly to the physical world in which we live.

Concepts that were once too complex for us to grapple with can now emerge as viable antagonists. Sometimes startling, occasionally even terrifying, but usually stimulating and growth-promoting nonetheless. Ideas that we might never have considered become slices of our individual and collective paradigms.

Some come by way of searching while others come unbeknownst to us. Some are even unwelcome, but they come anyway. Like with the case of the amazing shrinking toilet, and because of the multifaceted growth that accompanies human development, we’re faced with compulsory adaptation to various new realities each day. I would argue that how we address that compulsion determines our progress.

I can see how a person might consider the onslaught of ever-expanding thoughts, ideas, opinions, fears, challenges, and confusions that I’m referring to as divergent from the “shrinking” that I’ve described above. But again, I would suggest that with those things comes significant internal growth. Also again, I would suggest that it’s the recognition, understanding, appreciation, and integration of that growth that makes the difference.

I believe that one of the most important areas of self-awareness a person can foster is self-awareness as a learner. That’s where the integration comes in. How do you integrate even the simplest life lessons into your growth paradigm? In what ways do you fight though the various challenges of consistent change standing along the assorted pathways to positive progress?

It’s kind of amazing to look around the world every once in a while and realize the different perspectives that form within us from moment to moment. What recent realizations have guided your thinking, your actions, and/or your decision making in alternate directions; maybe many, maybe a few, maybe none? We’re each on similar but distinct journeys, and we’re each at different places along our paths. I believe it’s important to molt our emotional, academic, and spiritual skin every once in a while. Even if it grows back with all but unrecognizable variations, it seems to me that our willingness to go with the growth-flow is what perpetuates our maturity in each fundamental area.

As a five-year-old, my son is just beginning to realize that while the world around him does shift and change in many ways, he’s the thing within it that might be changing the most; an awkward realization in many ways. I specifically remember fighting it myself. Only in the past decade have I understood that with every passing day, I’m actually different than I was before. I spent the first three quarters of my life insisting that I would always be who I knew I was. Ironically, until I embraced the reality of my evolution, that knowledge was muddled at best.

It’s important for me as a parent to understand my children’s ever-changing perspectives of the world. It’s important for me as an educator to work hard at understanding my students’ ever-changing perspective of the world. It’s important for me as a school administrator to understand that each stakeholder I serve has an ever-changing perspective of the world. Everyone in my life, including me, is growing in every moment, and not just physically, but universally.

There is typically a time in each person’s life when opening the door to a dark basement is frightening. A time when our experience bank is too small to fully understand that dark doesn’t necessarily mean dangerous. My big guy’s amazing shrinking toilet experience left me reminded that we need to savor each moment while at the same time appreciating that the next is coming. This train ain’t stopping!

I have almost forty-one years of learning and growth under my belt. That’s almost fifteen thousand days, my friends. I look at my four-month-old child and think about his almost hundred and twenty days. It’s amazing what he’s done with them. I sure hope he continues along the learning and growth path that he’s on…it’s quite aggressive, and quite comprehensive. I’m excited to know that with every passing moment I absorb more, I learn more, and that the changes happening to me are helping me become my best self.

I’m excited about positive progress; it thrills me. I think that this grow-reliant system into which we’re born is truly incredible. At times it blissful, at times it’s intimidating, at times it’s perplexing, and at times it’s overwhelming. I find it to be always awe-inspiring, and I believe that if we’re focused on recognizing, understanding, appreciating, and integrating the gift of constant growth into our lives, we’re maximizing our potential and clearing the way for possibilities that we might have never considered otherwise. How to you process growth? Is who you’re becoming a matter of intention? What do you do to connect and maximize the benefit of the moments of your life?

Live. Learn. Lead.

Dream Big. Work Hard. Be Well.