Best growth

 My dear readers,

The other day I read somewhere that one of the most important, if not THE most important ingredient of living a life of purpose that is filled with job satisfaction, feeling good and peace of mind is to ensure our continued growth. And it is not physical growth. At my age physical growth can only happen in the width (getting fatter) and that is certainly not what we talk about here :) 😆😅.

Somehow to keep growing, we have to keep an open mind. Today I learned an important lesson, I want to share here with you. One old friend who was many years my junior, an ex student at the university I work for, has really advanced in life to a very important position. His social media messages get lots of attention and while many of them are truly humorous giving us a good laugh, some are didactic and others are opinion based. It was on some of the opinion based messages, that I had exchanged differences in opinion in private with him. He indicated before already, that he did not want to debate about these opinions with me. I should perhaps have respected that. Today however, I gave him a bit of honest feedback on one of his recent messages, particularly harsh on a very junior person that had inadvertently reached the news of Malaysia, after being barred from an exam in her university for a controversial reason. 

The response I received: unfriended from Facebook. Up to now I had rejoiced to see this friend of mine go up to a high position in the capital of our country. I was quite sure that he would keep rising to great heights. Now with quite some sadness in my heart, I became aware that he is facing some major obstacles to continued growth. It are not the "friends" who always agree with what you say that help you grow. It is the ones who express their different opinions, who dare to give some criticism now and then, who ensure our continued growth. I am most grateful for friends who do on and off disagree, who do give critical feed back. In the moment it may hurt, but in the long run, I do know that these are my best and most valuable friends.They help me grow.

The internet is supposed to help the world grow towards unity. But if we use it in an immature way; if we block out all information that is a bit disturbing to us; if we avoid reading different opinions; if we just want to bask in glory and get hundreds of likes, for whatever we say or do, we are on a dangerous path of limited or reverse growth. It may taste nice for awhile but it tends not to last. I pray for that friend in the above true story, that sooner rather than later he comes to his senses and keeps a truly open mind. 

A truly open mind means NOT to absorb all information that comes our way, but to read and be open for all information, using a very good filter. Filtering out the toxic food for our mind (the nonsense), but letting in what is valuable and keeping in a separate room things that we cannot accept right now but might make sense if look from a different point of view. 

I wish you, my dear readers a life filled with continued growth, not in belly fat, but in terms of spiritual, emotional, personality, character growth. It involves a basic humility and courage: we need to dare to doubt and avoid to be to easily certain about things that appear right on first sight. It was Voltaire who said: doubt is not comfortable but certainty is madness. Voltaire said it in a specific context but I think we can apply this to many areas of our life.