Growth

Slogan about Gross National Happiness in Thimphu's School of Traditional Arts. Photo by Italian writer Mario Biondi, September 2010, taken without permission from Wikipedia.

It has been said that one can have "To much of a good thing".  We want our children to grow from little babies to adults.  We want to increase our knowledge and understanding of our world.  We go from making what we earn with an after school job to what we earn in our careers.  Growth can be perceived as good.  We also become Obese.  We become dependent on advancing technology.  We base our economies, personal and national, on concepts of infinite growth.  When a bubble grows to large it bursts.

Why do we hold it so high in our society, to grow with out a goal to be achieved by that growth?  Our nations economy is a very good, bad example of this concept.  Maybe it is that we have just lost sight of what should be the real goal, securing the tools needed to allow each citizen to create a good life.  Measures of GDP are simplistic and don't reflect the true quality of life for the majority of citizens or the geophysical entity that is our country.  What good is it to be the richest nation in the world but can't and don't feed your people from your own land, your own labor?  The largest military in the world is now needed to pacify other peoples instead of creating security from our ability to be self supporting.  That same enormous amount of resource that supports our military could, I suppose, support a network of small local agriculture, and business that could provide for all who are taxed for it, AND, create a system of support for other countries and people to find ways of doing the same, and probably have money left over to keep some kind of military going because the reality of life necessitates such.

Growth is good to achieve a goal,  and then it should give way to maintenance and reason, gratitude and peace.

Their is social pressure to have an ever increasing income, or at least, to make as much money as one can.  But to what ends?  I read that studies were done that pointed out that after people made ENOUGH money to provide the basics of a good life, that having MORE money did not really make their lives happier, or less stressful.  You can read many accounts of people who have won a lottery and then not have a life of ease and happiness that you'd expect to be the result.

I have heard it said, "I want it better for my kids than I had it."  I found this to be a idea that I easily agreed with at first, but now it seems a bit strange.  I guess defining "better" would have to be done first.  Most often in our society the definition is linked to a financial or material meaning.  I find that definition lacking.  How bad did those people have it that say this?  I can see the side of those coming from histories of severe repression or violence.  But those things can and do exist for people of all income classes.  If you have lived a decent lifestyle, especially in this country, and been able to raise a family, afford the basic needs of life, food, and shelter then you've had more than most of the human beings on the planet have.

I was not born into privilege.  The people living next door to me as a child had no electricity and bought their water from my family and filled up their pales with it each day.  I do not wish more for my children than to know the richness of life, love and health of mind and body.  All the rest is the experience that makes life interesting, an education that can only be got in living, and that is steeped in truth's that the university can not teach as well, if at all.

I wish my children to have lives as rich.  Growth, the idea that I would must give them more than what I grew up with doesn't allow for true gratitude for the life I have been able to experience.  It might say that I am dissatisfied with who I am, or embarrassed by my place in life, and that I wish them to have better.  this is not the case.  I want for them to have good lives, as I have had a good life.

For every challenge in my life that I can think of, I have survived and received something.


In exchange for growing up in a family that didn't have a lot of money I learned how to work and earn money when needed.  I learned that I didn't know I was poor until the world told me so, meaning, I did not want for food, shelter, love.  I learned that my identity comes from within, not from a corporate logo or a fashion trend.  I got time with my family instead of things to occupy my time.

I couldn't afford many things I wanted in my life.  This was formative in much of my path in life.  I never could have planned the richness and experience that I got from that circumstance.  Because of that path I met people I will always hold dear in my heart.  In the end, I still went on to achieve much of what I wanted , and have dreams remaining to inspire me on in the rest of my journey.  This is not, and will not be everybody's experience, but to some degree, I think we are all capable of making our lives truly wonderful.

I want to help my children in pursuit of their dreams and let them live out their lives as they choose to make them.  I have no dreams for my own for them other than being happy and capable of dealing with what comes in a way that will allow them to one day say, "It was a good life".

Not more, but enough.

When you look at the rest of the world you will see that nothing grows infinitely, that in fact, most systems and organisms, great and small, may gain and lose to some degree, but have a greater stability.  The ones that don't usually die out.

My first home was small, the second one is just about the same size, maybe smaller in usable space.  It is enough.  At one point my income swelled to what would be considered really good.  With that growth came an inverse amount of happiness and satisfaction with my life.  Now money is not what brings happiness or peace.  This is a growth that I desire.  I have read that in Bhutan, Gross Domestic Happiness is of greater importance than Gross Domestic Product.