Our societies are attached to a phrase which it can be a bit too easy to assume we understand.
The talk is of people 'growing' and of having 'grown' which alludes to some kind of important psychological evolution and development.
But what does 'growing' in this sense really involve?
What is it that we are developing a capacity to do when we so-called grow and what are we leaving behind?
And, crucially, how might we train ourselves to grow a little more — and a little more quickly?
What we may essentially be pointing to with the idea of growth is the ability to stop responding to situations in the present through lenses unconsciously distorted by our psychological histories and, especially, the quirks and biases bequeathed to us by our invariably somewhat complicated childhoods.
A person who 'grows' is likely to be able to look more fairly at other people and situations — and to recognise the extent to which they might be aggravating conflict or heaping unwarranted suspicion or ruining their chances because they bear within them presumptions shaped by hard-to-recall experiences of loneliness, fear, betrayal and humiliation.
A person who has grown will more readily be able to check their first unhelpful responses to things and reach for a more complicated, objective set of explanations.
It may not always have to be their companion's fault.
Perhaps a mistake was — in this instance — innocent.
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