The city was growing so fast, they printed the phone book twice a year

Institutions, organizations and bureaucracies of any kind seek the same thing. People who comply, not grow. Which makes sense from an operational perspective. Compliance is extremely easy to measure, test, teach and scale. That’s what any of us would be doing if we ran a multimillion or billion dollar organization.

Buckminster, the legendary innovator and visionary, once observed that governments, religions and businesses would find it devastating to their activity to have humanity a success, as such institutions are predicated on people being an inherent failure.

It’s not quite a conspiracy theory, but there is enough productive paranoia in his sentiment that it’s worth delving into.

And not that complying is a mortal sin, either. Let’s not shit ourselves here. We all do what we have to do in order to survive. Everybody conforms, at least in small ways, some of the time.

But all lapses in integrity aside, what this concept does is point to a choice. One that not everybody has, but one that is certainly available.

It’s the choice to grow. The choice to morph and change, despite pressures from our environment that erode our sense of self and our confidence.

The choice to celebrate each of the steps of our growth as we take them.

The choice to develop and honest pride in how we have grown.

The choice to share that growth journey and adventures with those we love.

Reminds me of a line from my favorite fictional military policeman:

The city was growing so fast, they printed the phone book twice a year.

Wow, we should all be so lucky. Because as long as we keep growing, as long we keep changing, that means we are unpredictable, impossible to pigeonhole and difficult to control.

Remember, even if the strides of our growth take a while to compute and count, any time spent doing so is still sacred. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Are you ready today to fight off whatever may stop you from growing?