[![growth-without-struggle.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmWyYJpwZAvuHaM6yjdPuDNE2kvwSqmAtzgUrqJHtuQ8xm/growth-without-struggle.jpg)](https://unsplash.com/photos/iSHwa3EaMlo)

What is the point of striving to become more than you are? Have you forgotten that growth is a natural consequence of life? That a tree never struggles to grow, a child never struggles to grow, the universe never struggles to expand? Struggle and growth are complete opposites. Struggle is a resistance to growth.

Wherever there is life, growth occurs. Growth takes what’s right in front of it and turns it into more. You can’t eat your future meals today. A plant never grows from sun rays that don’t hit it, or drinks from rain that falls in some distant place. It’s all about what’s here right now. That is the food of your growth.

So what’s right in front of you right now?

What’s right in front of me is a keyboard and a screen. A word processor. An internet full of ideas I could connect in any way possible. But some of those things aren’t in front of me. That internet full of ideas is not in front of me, it’s beyond the pale of this moment. I would have to search for those ideas to find them. It would require my present self to promise my future self away to some task.

So what’s in front of me right now in this moment? A desire to grow. A desire to grow more easily. To be gentler with myself. To connect with people in a way that honors who we really are. Where they don’t have to be able to give me something for me to see worth in what they have to offer.

Man, why does writing feel so hard? I want to give up every time it feels this hard. But why is writing hard? I know how to type. I know how to edit. To copy, to paste. Writing is easy. So what’s hard about it then? Making decisions. Whittling words down from infinite possibility. I could write an entire article using autocorrect on my phone and see where it leads me. That would be fun!

### Growth (an autocorrect poem)
####

*I typed growth and then picked one of the three autocorrect options, adding periods when I felt like a sentence was complete.*

>Growth spurt and the other two were insecure but I don't know what to do. Thanks for the invite but I will be back. And if you want to come by and see the house and I don't know what you want to eat. I will probably be there.

Writing that made me feel so alive. As if there was something magical just in stepping out of my normal writing routine. We all walk the paths of our lives so deliberately, seldom investigating what’s beyond the places we go everyday. I’ve never been in the back of the stores I regularly shop in, to see behind the scenes. I’ve never taken so many of the exits I pass on the freeway. I’ve never explored the world around me outside of the parts that felt like they gave me some direct reason to explore them.

Why do I need a reason to explore? As I kid I investigated every nook and cranny of my neighborhood and nature. Everything was fair game. It was all about saying yes to wherever life called me next! But as an adult, my life is so much more “purposeful.” *This is what I do. This is what I’m into. This is what I want.* Everything is so defined that there’s seldom any room to just let random lead me off on some adventure.

That’s what that autocorrect poem was. It was surrendering to random and letting the choices that were right in front of me in that moment be the only possibilities I focused on. It was so simple, and such a joy to partake in. Even if it doesn’t make perfect sense, that’s simply because it invites the reader to make sense of it. Its meaning is not so crystal clear that you are merely the receiver of its preordained intent. You are the creator of its meaning. Like any good art, it’s your interpretation of it that makes it meaningful to you, or not.

### Final Thoughts
####

I feel like I’ve grown so much from writing this. I didn’t struggle to come up with worthwhile ideas, or painstakingly edit them into perfection. I just flowed with my stream of consciousness and allowed myself to enjoy the insights that were ripe and ready along the way.

I probably won’t walk past the “employees only” sign of my grocery story. Or take some random exit on the freeway to see where it leads. But I will think twice about my creative process, and following some of the tenants that felt so core to what I believed “creating” is supposed to be.

I do not need to struggle to find beauty in the world. So why should I struggle to find beauty in my words? Maybe what I’m looking for has nothing to do with struggle at all. Maybe I’m just looking to shine a light on area of life worth exploring. And then I can let that light illuminate everything there is to find on the way.

I do not have to create, I can illuminate. The world I live in has already been created. I’m not importing new materials or ideas from distant planets. I’m just either alive and present in this moment, or too focused on where I think I should be going that I can’t see what’s right in front of me.

That is the choice I make every time I sit down to write. Will I see what’s right in front of me? Or will I be too busy trying to get where I think I need to go.

I feel good about the choice I made tonight.


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