New Growth

Today I was reading further in the book the 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth and it encouraged the reader to write a list of your 100 best qualities.  100!  As I started in on my list, I realized that I was doing yet another activity in the quest to advance my self-esteem.  What is with all the activities, you may ask?  If I expect to grow, I need to do more than fill myself fat with information.  If I never apply what I am learning, the information itself does me no good.  If a farmer goes and reads daily about crops, but never actually gets out and plants anything, he will never see a harvest.  Nor should he expect to.  It is the same way in advancing my self-esteem.  The problem is, advancing my self-esteem requires mental growth, so it is often assumed that reading something alone will achieve this.  The truth is, it doesn't.  Reading about self-esteem informs you about it, it doesn't improve your own love for yourself.  If I want to love myself more, I need to invest in myself.  As John Maxwell states, "if you do not value yourself, you will have a very difficult time adding value to yourself."  So I need to try.  I need to make the effort.  Not just read, but apply.  

If I expect to grow a harvest, I need to do the planting.  Daily, everyone is given opportunities to respond to life.  Even if you sat on a couch and watched T.V. all day, you are still responding to the decision to do that over something else.  Everyday, we decide to either progress or digress.  Anything that isn't growing is dying.  How often do you see a plant that stays the same size for years?  Or a child?  It doesn't happen.  Yet as adults, we assume if we stay in one spot, that our momentum and mentalities will stay the same.  The scary part is that they won't.  Growth is intentional when we reach adulthood.  And going to work, if it is a standard job, won't grow you.  It will just tire you out so that you feel like doing nothing when you get home.  I worked to get where I am right now.  I already know how it feels to give up, I already know how it feels to procrastinate.  I already know how it feels to be stagnant.  I choose to be progressing.

"The seed which fell among the thorns, these are the ones who have heard, and as they go on their way they are choked with worries and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to maturity. But the seed in the good soil, these are the ones who have heard the word in an honest and good heart, and hold it fast, and bear fruit with perseverance." -Luke 8:14-15