The package from Amazon spilled across my desk. I gently picked up my latest purchase: a book on the understated sophistication of animals.
Eagerly I cracked open the spine, excited to take a look inside. But before I could focus on the printed word something else caught my attention.
Scrawled on the front page in blue pen was a short and sweet note:
Mom
(and underneath a dramatic flourish)
Christmas 2016
Love, The Millers.
A couple of weeks later history repeated itself.
Anxious to devour my latest purchase, an exploration of how humans adapt and respond to the built environment, I ripped open the padded envelope and out tumbled another “perfect condition” hardcover.
This time the elegant all-caps scrawl was more intentional and urgent, more directive and work-specific:
SOME INTERESTING THINGS HERE
THAT YOU MAY EVEN BE ABLE TO USE IN YOUR WORK.
MERRY CHRISTMAS 2021.
LOVE, DAD
My habit of buying books in “USED: LIKE NEW” conditions opened up an awkward portal to a common and yet accepted or overlooked issue in our personal relationships: wanting another to change, to be more knowledgeable, thoughtful, sophisticated, well-read and erudite than they actually are.
There’s no way out of it: this was an expectation wrapped in gift-form.
Unsurprisingly, the books remained unread.
It’s almost a law of human nature that as soon as we place a demand on others, they will find some way to not comply. Often with the most rational and understandable excuses.
This perennial ‘demand’ we place on others to grow, in the most well-intentioned and good-natured way, most often remains unrequited.
This is in evidence by the fact that I am now the proud owner of books that were actually intended for someone else’s ‘Mom’ and ‘Son’ or ‘Daughter.’
No one sent or gifted these books to me. And I actually read them.
Coincidence? I rather think not.
***
Humans, like all creatures in the natural world, have an innate desire for growth.
Plant lovers: think of this like the green shoots that bend towards the light, or the giant Monstera leaves that grow larger and larger in response to low-light conditions, maximizing the surface area whereupon which it may receive the most necessary ingredient for its existential life-force.
Speaking of someone who has sent books to others (I plead guilty!) and has made an unknowably and unaccountably large amount of book recommendations, both unsolicited (I didn’t know better) and solicited (at least I have an alibi!) – I deeply understand the ‘good intentions’ behind this act.
Yet: what is it that we want for this person that is actually something we want for ourselves?
How is it that we are ‘pushing’ growth on others, when that energy might be ‘better spent’ redirecting back to our own development, our own self-awareness, and efforts to clarify what it is indeed that we are seeking for ourselves in the universe?
I bought these books because I wanted to read them. They piqued my curiosity. They align with my research interests, my personality/worldview, and inform my work.
They are meaningful to me.
I’m not surprised that my new books were apparent gifts from one close family member to another; is there possibly more of an urgent drive than to change our family members?
But the actual connection to another person doesn’t even matter: we’re all placing demands and expectations for growth on others in various forms, all day, every day. Only a small fraction of those demands come complete with a cover, a spine, and various pages.
What would happen if instead we redirected that desire for growth and change in others back to the only place we have control: ourselves?
How could what we are doing for ourselves instead genuinely activate the innate motivation for growth in others?
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