Growth Isn't (always) Good

4 reasons to reconsider growth

On planet Earth, stasis is death. Ideas, businesses, and lives that stay idle for too long get swallowed up by the ones making progress.

Take weapons technology as an example. We all agree that developing ever more clever ways of killing is not tax money well spent. However, had your country stopped improving its guns and missiles after World War I it would have lost severely in the inflationary exchange of technological progress over the last century. 

This feeling that we must make continuous progress just to survive is true, but something permeating our culture is getting in the way of progress. Growth. I see it everywhere. 

Growth Mindset. 

Grow Your Brand/Wealth. 

Personal Growth.

Grow Up.

I’m not just being picky about word choice. Those phrases are Russell Conjugations — combinations of words, like Global Warming or Illegal Alien, meant to elicit emotional responses.

Global Warming was an emotionally powerful phrase in the early 2000s but may now be compromising its original mission. Global Warming insinuates a global issue, which average humans are hopelessly powerless to fight. And millions of people live in climates where warmer temperatures are welcomed. Perhaps we would have made more progress in combating American Pollution.

Either way, word choice matters.  

The following four points explain why we should reconsider our relationship to growth.

1. Growth as a Measurement

My alma mater, the University of Cincinnati (UC), is growing. There are 10,000 more students enrolled in the Fall 2024 semester than when I studied there ten years ago. 

At some point the U.S. Department of Education, or perhaps an even higher power, decided that a growing collegiate student body is progress. The reasoning is understandable. More students in college means better-educated citizens means better society for everyone.

University of Cincinnati enrollment statistics

The motives are not evil, but just because Number Go Up doesn’t mean we’ve made progress. 

College enrollment hasn’t grown because high schoolers are smarter or more capable scholars. Enrollment has grown because standards have lowered and student loans are guaranteed by the government.

Negative side effects of the Number Go Up mentality in education are twofold. One, college degrees have been massively devalued. Master’s are the new Bachelor’s. Online degrees included, both are essentially participation trophies (I would know, I have a hybrid Master’s from a state university). And two, every year tens of thousands of teenagers that are uninterested in higher education and would be better served entering the workforce or learning a trade saddle themselves with unforgivable debt.  

Number Go Up is a shortsighted measurement of progress. More sales do not guarantee a healthier company. More friends do not guarantee better relationships. More muscle does not guarantee better physical fitness. 

For high schoolers graduating today, the cost of higher education is rising while the quality is plummeting. 

2. Growth as a Pathology

Nothing is good for us in a vacuum. Unrestrained beauty turns into obsession. Humility into passivity. Love in smothering. Financial savvy into paranoia. 

And so too, growth can turn pathological. 

Every human body starts as a single cell. Then it divides into two. Then four and eight cells and so on until tissues and organs are formed. Healthy cells divide based on chemical signals from the cells surrounding them. 

Occasionally one of a trillion cells inherits a mutation. If it doesn’t shut itself down or get shut down by its environment it can divide recklessly. Every time it divides it passes along its DNA containing the instructions for reckless growth. Weeks or months or years later the pathologically growing cells turn into masses we call cancer. 

Overnight fame is a second form of pathological growth. One day a kid is in math class, the next she’s performing at the VMA’s. 

We say she has gone viral as if it’s decisively good, but viral growth is sketchy at best. Evidence suggests that our bodies and minds aren’t equipped to handle it.

For overnight stars, performing in the spotlight is incredibly stressful. Add to that the awareness that dozens of adults, some with families, come to rely on the shooting star for their livelihood. Add to that the judgment of their image by millions of strangers on an hour-by-hour basis and it’s easy to see how viral growth can warp an individual’s identity by spreading it too far, too fast. 

Say our ego grows recklessly without the approval of the other egos in our environment. Perhaps we develop a type of mental cancer over time. Say millions of strangers build our identity overnight. Perhaps we feel as though our identity contains a virus.

3. Growth in Trees

Nowhere in nature is growth a never-ending, one-way street. Everything in nature is cyclical. 

Trees, the tallest organisms we have, grow in the spring and summer and die in the fall and winter. 

In our fixation on growth, on self-improvement, we’ve ignored the role of death. 

Ancient Greeks used the Phoenix to symbolize renewal through death. The Phoenix was a radiantly colored, mythical bird that built its own funeral pyre, igniting it with a clap of its wings. After death, it rose from its ashes to live anew. 

Transforming from a selfish person to an unselfish person is not to add unselfishness onto selfishness. Instead, the selfish part of our personality must die in order for the unselfishness to take root.

Trees are not only our best growers, they’re also our longest livers. If survival is a measure of success, trees are the most evolutionary successful creatures on earth.

Methuselah, a 5,000-year-old bristlecone pine in California

Trees grow until they reach a natural point of maturity. At maturity, they are busy in maintenance mode. Using their roots to find water, reinforcing bark, and sending sugar up to their leaves. 

Adult trees have a comfortability in their own skin that humans struggle to find. In the same way that over-confidence is childish, not thinking we are good enough or smart enough or funny enough is a telltale sign of immaturity in adults. 

4. Joe Rogan’s Growth Philosophy

Professional athletes often admit they are less motivated by the feeling of winning than by the fear of losing. They dedicate their lives and sacrifice their bodies because they are scared.

And athletes aren’t alone. 

The most cited economics study of all time proved that the emotional impact of winning money is felt less than the impact of losing it. We all have an aversion to loss. 

That’s what makes competition so exhilarating. If we aren’t focused or prepared and lack execution in competition we risk feeling lesser than our peers.

When Joe Rogan started the Joe Rogan Experience he was already a successful stand-up comedian. His great innovation was that he regularly invited other stand-ups to his show. As Rogan’s platform grew, so did the profiles of his guests. 

Theo Von. Tom Segura. Shane Gillis. Mark Normand. Andrew Santino. Duncan Trussell. Tim Dillon. All comedians whose careers benefitted tremendously from their appearances on the JRE. 

Then there’s Lex Fridman. Sam Harris. Bill Burr. Eric Weinstein. Russell Brand. Andrew Huberman. All successful podcasters making a living because Rogan encouraged them to start one.  

The insight from Rogan is that life is not a game. In games, when another side succeeds it proportionately increases our chances of losing.

Rogan understood that more successful comedians made more fans of comedy and more successful podcasters made more fans of podcasting. He was not worried about losing his share of the pie because he was busy doubling and tripling the pie’s size.

As he helped launch careers, Rogan gained popularity in lockstep with his growing family tree of comedians and podcasters.

Perhaps the best way for us to grow is by helping our friends grow too. 

Closing thoughts:

Growth is not the only way to make progress.

Let’s say your company came to you and said, “Okay, everyone, no raises this year. You’ll get paid the same as last year, but we’re going to work 10% less. Then 10% less the following year and the year after that until we’re working two hours a day but getting paid what exactly we get paid today.”

Would you take that deal?

Thanks for reading. Last week’s essay caused a bit of unintended confusion. The NBA coach in the interview was a figment of my imagination. Perhaps you’ll find it interesting to re-read knowing its fictitious nature.

Also, try my exercise series. See you in two weeks!

-Dev