Chapter 22
The Price of Existential Growth
In the previous chapter, the SAL Hierarchy and its NINE (9) levels or stages were introduced. In this chapter, we will discuss the PRICE of Existential Growth, which cannot be gifted, purchased, stolen, or traded for; it must always be earned.
COROLLARY 10.3
Existential Growth cannot be gifted, purchased, stolen, or traded for; it must always be earned.
In this world, you can buy virtually any product, resource, or service if you have enough money.
This is not the case with Existential Growth!
Like any trait of character or other metaphysical commodity, Existential Growth must always be earned; that is just the way things are.
Not even a billionaire can buy knowledge, skills, talents, morals, or good character. Such things must always be earned (developed) over time, and can only be acquired with the currency of effort, expended authentically and consistently in concerted ways.
In short, earning Existential Growth is challenging. It requires great effort, focus, and determination expended over time, and engenders anxiety and pain along the way.
COROLLARY 10.4
Earning Existential Growth is challenging. It requires great effort, focus, and
determination expended over time and engenders anxiety and pain along the way.
 |
Like compound interest, wealth in any area of life
requires patiently waiting for the rewards of GROWTH. |
As Fyodor Dostoevsky so aptly put it:
a new philosophy, a new way of life, is not given for nothing. It has to be paid dearly for and is only acquired with much patience and great effort.
"A new philosophy, a new way of life, is not given for nothing. It has to be paid dearly for and is only acquired with much patience and great effort."
—Fyodor Dostoevsky
Vince Lombardi, that famous championship Head Coach of the Green Bay Packers during the 1960s, and Barry C. Forbes, echoed Dostoevsky's words, as follows:
"Success is like anything worthwhile. It has a price. You have to pay the price to win
and you have to pay the price to get to the point where success is possible.
More important, you must pay the price to stay there."
—Vince Lombardi
"A price has to be paid for success. Almost invariably those who have reached the summits worked harder and longer, studied and planned more assiduously, practiced more self-denial, [and] overcame more difficulties than those of us who have not risen so far."
—Barry C. Forbes
M. Scott Peck corroborated Dostoevsky's, Lombardi's, and Forbes' truisms when he wrote:
"Attitudes [and beliefs and habits] have a kind of inertia. Once set in motion, they will keep going, even in the face of [conflicting] evidence. To change an attitude [or belief or habit] requires a considerable amount of work and suffering. The process must begin ... in a painful acknowledgment that what we thought was right all along may not be right after all. Then it proceeds into a state of confusion. This state is quite uncomfortable; we no longer seem to know what is right or wrong or which way to go. But it is a state of openness and therefore of learning and growing. It is only from the quicksand of confusion that we are able to leap to the new and better vision." (1)
As a boy, my father taught me that nothing in life worth having comes fast or easy.
Dad was RIGHT!
Existential Growth requires time, effort, self-sacrifice, patience, and varying amounts and degrees of pain and other unpleasantness.
There... is... no... other... way!
Those who acquire anything of real or lasting value have paid the price it demands and have therefore earned the rights and privileges that accompany its acquisition.
This Life Leadership textbook invites YOU to do things you have never done before. It challenges you to stretch by privately examining your mind, heart, and soul deep below the fickle façades you may have diffidently donned and then flakily flaunted in public in the past.
There is no way of getting around the discomfort of Existential Growth. It's been said that "hard work never killed a man; but it sure scared a lot of them!"
"Hard work never killed anyone; but it sure scared a lot of 'em!"
—Anonymous
I can personally relate to this quote because I confess that I've often been afraid of hard work myself. This may come as a surprise because I am known for being a hard worker and have achieved a great many things in my life and career through my consistent, determined, and focused work ethic.
But the fact is that sometimes hard work scares me. The important thing is that I have
not let this fear stop me from moving forward and taking action. After all, courage is not the absence of fear, it is action in the face of fear. In the pithy parlance of the ole Western actor, John Wayne:
Courage is being scared to death and saddling up anyway.
"Courage is being scared to death
and saddling up anyway."
—John Wayne
This is one of my all-time favorite quotes for the simple reason that I have applied it so many times across my own life's varied and dynamic experiences; and in so doing, have discovered its beautiful and rewarding truth.
One dynamic and inspirational leader said the following about the virtues of hard work:
"Work is the miracle by which talent is brought to the surface and dreams become reality. There is simply no substitute under the heavens for productive labor. It is the process by which idle visions become dynamic achievements. I suppose that we are all inherently lazy. We would rather play than work. We would rather loaf than work. A little play and a little loafing are good. But it is work that spells the difference in the life of a man or woman or a boy or a girl. Children who are taught to work and to enjoy the fruits of that labor have a great advantage as they grow toward maturity. The process of stretching our minds and utilizing the skills of our hands lifts us from the stagnation of mediocrity." (2)
One of the reasons I include so many details of my own SAL journey in this Life Leadership textbook is because I want YOU to understand how hard I had to work and how much difficulty I was required to pass through to get to the wonderful places I stand today. I share this information because I want YOU to clearly understand that I can't merely luck my way into Existential Growth; and neither can you or anyone else.
I did not get to where I am today because I got lucky.
I became what I am today because I successfully passed through many soul-wrenching trials and was blessed by Serendipity all along the way.
That is not to say I didn't enjoy many aspects of my journey; I did! But the journey was difficult and required my very best efforts in conjunction with a lot of patience and sacrifice. It required me to throw everything into the tasks at hand and hold nothing back; and it will require YOU to do the same.
No matter who you are, or who your parents or friends are, and regardless of your SAL Variables Quotient, YOU must ultimately earn every fibre and sinew of what you become (minus the grace- and mercy-filled gifts of Serendipity). Existential Growth is a magnificent adventure; but it is not for the faint of heart or the weak of will.
If you are reading this Life Leadership textbook in hopes of getting temporarily motivated or "psyched up" it may have that provisional effect; but that is not its primary purpose. It's fundamental objective is to empower you with a knowledge of True Principles rooted in Universal Laws in hopes you will choose to muster the effort, discipline, and dogged determination and persistence that authentic Existential Growth absolutely demands of everyone who ultimately achieves it.
This Life Leadership textbook is an academically sound, yet highly practical, field guide to becoming a happy and successful human being. In order to take full advantage of it you must commit to more than just a passive review, or even a close reading of its contents. You must commit to a careful study of the total work in conjunction with completing all of the SAL Master Challenge. Then, you must continue to read, study, and refer back to this text over and over again throughout your life to recalibrate, refresh, remake, renew, restore, and continually gain new insights as you grow, progress, mature, and experience evolving needs on higher levels of Existential Growth.
Doing this will not be easy; at times, in fact, it will prove quite hard! But that's okay, because great people and organizations embrace opportunities to do hard things and achieve lofty heights.
Greatness was never achieved without bravely confronting and then faithfully enduring HARD THINGS.
In the memorable message of President John F. Kennedy:
We do not go to space because it is easy; we do it because it is hard.
"We do not go to space because it is easy;
we do it because it is hard."
—John F. Kennedy
All human beings are capable of remarkable achievements. Stellar feats of human endeavor are not limited to those who possess outlying aptitudes or talents.
We each came to this world equipped with the capacity to accomplish difficult things, to meet and beat extraordinary adversity, to engage and realize significant personal changes, and to achieve personal, familial, and organizational EXCELLENCE.
Some of life's mightiest and most satisfying accomplishments involve transcending onerous obstacles, completing worthy goals, and overcoming the undesirable and unhelpful elements of one's natural character and personality.
This text will never seek to hide the incredibly challenging nature of SAL.
Freedom Focused will never deceive you or sell you snake oil.
This transparency exists for the sake of authenticity and candidness. And we lay it on thick because it is the truth.
But do not let this truth discourage or dissuade you from accepting the challenge!
Lest you think that SAL is all difficulty and misery, I have some very good news for you. Beyond the struggle and uncertainty lies achievement, growth, happiness, fulfilment, and prosperity beyond your wildest dreams.
Furthermore, the end rewards are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg when it comes to the plentiful positives that accompany the journey itself, which, while inevitably challenging, is also extremely exciting, magnificently motivating, richly rewarding, strenuously satisfying, and fantastically fulfilling.
Any pursuit of Existential Growth will provide YOU with added meaning to your life; and according to Viktor Frankl, MEANING is a great (if not the fundamental) antidote to depression and virtually all other preventable and/or curable mental illnesses. (3) Indeed, you are much less likely to get sucked into the "existential vacuum" (4) when you are busy cleaning up your life, home, and community—and helping others to do the same.
In the end, the REWARDS of Existential Growth far outweigh the PRICE, even though the price may seem daunting—if not insurmountable—along the way. However cliché it may sound, there really is a pot—nay, a mountain—of GOLD at the end of each of your life's many rainbows.
But REMEMBER: Storms always precede Rainbows!
To locate these mounds—or even mountains—of gold, you must come to understand and recognize gold for what it really is—and also for what it really isn't.
Beware of existential fool's gold!
You can avoid being fooled by fake gold by being willing to patiently persist and be persistently patient—all along your lifelong quest—never forgetting the sage truism of Napoleon Hill, who reminded us that every adversity, every failure, and every heartache carries with it an equivalent or a greater benefit. (5)
"Every adversity, every failure, and every heartache carries
with it the see of an equivalent or a greater benefit."
—Napoleon Hill
Simple Truths vs. Easy Answers
In the legendary lingo of M. Scott Peck, M.D., life is difficult, complex, and there are no easy answers (6) to its myriad challenges and obstacles.
Peck is right!
That is the bad news.
The good news, however, is that while there may not be easy answers to life's quizzical queries and perplexing problems, there are many SIMPLE TRUTHS that can guide us to success and victory.
The SAL philosophy is chock full of these simple truths. By "simple" I mean it is simply stated and easy to conceptualize or theorize. But this does not mean, of course, that it is easy to apply in real life—at least not in the short run—although a compelling argument can be made that it is, in fact, the easiest way to live in the long-run.
In the reiterated refrains of Jerzy Gregorek and Eleonor Roosevelt:
"Hard choices, easy life.
Easy choices, hard life."
—Jerzy Gregorek
"Courage is more exhilarating than fear and in the long run it is easier. We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering we have the strength to stare it down."
—Eleanor Roosevelt
Existential Growth is more than an academic definition and theoretical construct. It is a MINDSET—a new way of thinking, speaking, doing, living, and most importantly—being.
In her book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Carol S. Dweck suggests that growth in any life arena is possible, but contingent upon developing a frame of mind that cultivates, nurtures, and supports the possibility and reality of GROWTH.
According to Dweck, there are two fundamental, yet divergent mindsets about our potential as human beings. The first is a "fixed mindset," which advocates the belief "that your qualities are carved in stone," (7) and there's not much you can do about it. The second is a "growth mindset," (8) which promotes the paradigm that our potential is more fluid based on what we choose to think about, say, and do.
As Dweck puts it:
"In [the growth] mindset, the hand you're dealt with is just the starting point for development. ... It is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts. Although people may differ in every which way—in their initial talents and aptitudes, interests, or temperaments—everyone can change and grow through application and experience. ... [Those with a growth mindset] believe that a person's true potential is unknown (and unknowable); that it's impossible to foresee what can be accomplished with years of passion, toil, and training." (9)
Existential Growth goes well beyond mere self-improvement and personal development. It advances to the ontological transformation of your very being. The purpose of this Life Leadership textbook is to help YOU develop a Growth Mindset so you can begin a lifelong journey toward the highest levels of Existential Growth in the SAL Hierarchy and thereby become all you are capable of becoming—the possibilities of which are truly endless.
Having introduced the SAL Hierarchy with all of its possibilities and potential, it is now time to switch gears and learn about the opposing forces of Existential Growth by considering the reality and implications of existential atrophy and its accompanying SAL lowerarchy.
—Dr. JJ
Wednesday, October 23, 2024
Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, USA
Author's Note: This is the 413th Blog Post Published by Freedom Focused LLC since November 2013 and the 222nd consecutive weekly blog published since August 31, 2020.
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Chapter 22 Notes
1. Peck, M.S. (1983). People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil. New
York, NY: Touchstone. Page 240.
2. Hinckley, G.B. (2000). Standing for Something: 10 Neglected Virtues that will
Heal Our Hearts and Homes. New York, NY: Three Rivers Press. Pages 94-95.
3. Frankl. V. (2006). Man’s Search for Meaning. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
4. Ibid. Page 106-108. According to Frankl, “The existential vacuum manifests
itself mainly in a state of boredom” (p. 106).
5. Hill, N. (1960). Think and Grow Rich. New York, NY: Fawcett Crest. The exact quote reads: "every failure brings with it the seed of an equivalent advantage" and can be found on pages 38 and 155. I have been unable to locate the exact quote included in the text above; I can't remember precisely where I saw it. But I like it enough—and it is sufficiently substantively similar—that I opted to include it as is.
6. "Life is difficult," "life is complex," and "there are no easy answers" are iconic mantras from
Peck’s Road Less Traveled trilogy, including, respectively:
a. Peck, M.S. (1978) The
Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual
Growth. New York, NY: Touchstone.
b. Peck, M.S. (1993) Further Along the Road
Less Traveled: The Unending Journey Toward Spiritual Growth (The Edited
Lectures). New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.
c. Peck, M.S. (1997) The Road
Less Traveled and Beyond: Spiritual Growth in an Age of Anxiety. New York, NY:
Touchstone.
7. Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success: How We Can
Learn to Fulfill our Potential. New York, NY: Ballantine Books. Page 6.
8. Ibid. Page 7.
9. Ibid.
