Growth is the only evidence of life

Growth is the only evidence of life

I used to run after good grades but slowly I commenced chasing knowledge. I used to memorise questions without truly understanding what they implied, but gradually I began finding meaning in everything.

We often wonder when did we grow up. Here’s my story. It was a fine pleasant dawn. I woke up and as usual went to the washroom. With my hefty sleepy eyes I took a glance at myself in the mirror and abruptly saw the discrepancy in my figure. Something was transformed; my body wasn’t like mine. It was, somehow, unusual. I rubbed my eyes and scrutinised myself carefully, all fractions of my body. My hair was slightly lengthier, my eyes were brighter, my skin healthier. I had nodded off as a juvenile and woken up as an adult.
No, this is not true, I am just writing fiction. That’s not how I suddenly grew up. I grew up like we all grow up; I didn’t change overnight. It’s a long process; it took me years to reach here at this juncture of life where I am capable of thinking like an adult and acting like an adult or at least looking like one. I now feel I am prospering every day, improving every day, my mind thinking more and more wisely. Entities that used to amuse me once feel dreary today. People whom I used to idolise in adolescence now only arouse in me the emotion of contempt. I used to look at my mother with affection only, but now I glare at her with love and compassion at the same time. I used to ask for money from my father for all my cravings; now I flinch from asking for it even for my crucial requirements.
I don’t recall a particular day where all these upheavals occurred. When actually did all that take place, without me having a sniff about it? How did I learn to differentiate between right and wrong? How do I anticipate where to converse what, and even if I am not part of any conversation, how do I understand what people are discussing about? When did I learn to talk to numerous kinds of people in several manners? It wasn’t a specific day or a specific month or event. Everyday something happened that eventually made me more me, I guess. I don’t remember the day I was born but with what I’ve noticed in myself so far, a new day gives birth to a new me. On every new day I assume a different version of myself, that originates within me.
This never halts, growth just never stops. From the beginning I’ve been simply evolving. I thought it’s precisely my body that’s changing but it’s not just my body, every aspect of my character is changing. The only thing that I love about growing up is that I see things in a whole new light every day. I am able to understand people by their mannersims, their tone and their behaviour. There are so many things that teachers taught me: they taught me to recognise alphabets, words, sentences. Some things that my family taught me, like how to eat, how to talk, how to walk, and most of all, they made me recognise God. Then there are some things that I just observed and accumulated in myself. I don’t remember anyone teaching me expressions; that’s something that I guess I learned on my own.
I used to run after good grades but slowly I commenced chasing knowledge. I used to memorise questions without truly understanding what they implied, but gradually I began finding meaning in everything. I used to get infuriated if someone rectified me, but now I remain in hunt of people who can instruct me and correct my faults. I guess that’s what we call growth. I used to think I’ve squandered my life because I couldn’t memorise questions but now that I look back I discover that actually I haven’t wasted even a second because other than the limited questions, I’ve learned everything else. There’s another important thing that I’ve realised in these years: that if I run after something and I achieve it, I’ll lose interest in it, or I won’t be able to get better. Like when I was in high school, I always wanted to hold the first position in class, but I never did; I was always second or third. It was not just the case in high school; everywhere I was the second one or third one. I don’t know how it feels to be the first. Except some online competitions, I’ve never won the first position. That means I was always almost there, but not there. Almost first but not first, and that greed to be the first has kept me going till now.
I lately went through my former diary and I was relatively stunned to see how many mistakes I’ve made in the initial few pages. Then as I kept turning the pages, the mistakes started decreasing and at the end there were just a few left. And that taught me an incredible lesson. My own diary, my own phrases demonstrated a reflection of my growing soul. And now I believe I have a reason to fight and that simple reason is to learn, to grow up, because growth is the only evidence of life.

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