It's (always) Time To Develop

I have always found the ideas of development to be very interesting. A man named Erik Erikson was one of the leading developmental stage theorists years ago. He changed his last name to Erikson to spite his father, positing that he was his own son; Erik’s Son. Erikson. Tad narcissistic if you ask me, but hey, takes one to know one.

Erikson talked about how throughout our lives we are all faced with developmental crises. At any given stage of life, one is trying to answer some sort of existential question about themselves. From the ages of 12-20 the question one attempts to answer is, “Who am I?” From 20-40 one asks if they are somebody who can love. From 40-65 we ask how we can build into the next generation. The stages aren't perfect, but if you look around you can see them taking place in people you know all around you. Whatever age group you are in, you are probably trying to answer one of the above three questions right now. He had five other stages, but you probably need to get back to work in a minute, so let’s get moving.

During another one of my necessary and uninterrupted rants a few weeks ago, my dad asked me why I kept calling them developmental crises. I should have told him to just listen or I would change my name to Colter Colterson, but I decided to entertain the question. I thought for a minute before I remembered something my professor had told us. Crisis = when the demands of the situation outweigh the resources that we have available.

We are constantly facing developmental crises. Children face them almost daily. A given situation might demand that they walk, yet they don’t have the resources to do so. They might want a cookie that is on the coffee table and for some reason, mom and dad aren’t helping them this time. When you walk to go grab something from the cupboard, you don’t see if as developmental because you already have the resources to walk. An infant does not. They have to develop the resources. In terms of science and matter, they say that something cannot come from nothing, but here it does. Walking comes from not being able to walk. Well, perhaps it comes from the potential to walk, but something large still comes out of something small.

You are facing a developmental crisis right now. Either that or you are in between them. The reason that we become stagnant is because we don’t want to face what we have to face. But somewhere in your life there is a situation that is calling you to be different. You've got to change in order to cope, to thrive, to grow, to love…

Some situation is demanding something from you that you do not have the resources to succeed in. Sure, the word “demand” might be strong. Technically, it is never demanded that we walk. Some people get along fine without walking, perhaps because of an accident. So you could say “no” to walking. If an infant were able to think at this level they might say, “I don’t know how to walk, therefore I can’t, and I won’t. I will never walk.” But walking is good! You’ll fall at the beginning, but there’s people around to support you if you don’t do it alone.

What situation in your life is requiring you to exercise resources you don’t have? Right now you may not know how to do what life is calling out of you. But one thing you do know how to do is develop resources that you didn’t previously have.