On my desk at work I have a few personal effects.
I have a framed photo of the Wrigley Field sign featuring a congratulatory message to my husband and I on our wedding, a baseball, a framed picture of my husband and I, a page-a-day tropical calendar and some baseballs and stress balls.
I also have a lucky bamboo plant that I was given by a friend of mine as I was leaving my first full time job and heading to this one. When I started at my current company, the plant is small, no more than 2″ wide, and started rather short – maybe 5″ tall.
I don’t see the change in this tiny plant daily. At my year anniversary with the company, however, I looked at the plant next to a photo of the plant when I got there. It had blossomed and almost doubled in height, without any notice from me each day even though it was right in front of my face. That’s how people grow and change, too, just like that lucky bamboo. Slowly, and without notice each day. But each day’s minuscule growth adds up to big change over time.
The danger in that is that without seeing the changes happen daily, it’s hard to really track the progress and tell if you’re growing straight up or sideways or downwards. The change is inevitable, but the factors that you surround yourself will impact the direction and rate of growth.
Points in time when you measure growth like a child’s height chart are important to help you make sure you’re on the right track.
From last New Year’s Eve to this one, we’ve had a lot of changes that are easy to see – we look a year older, we’ve changed our address and we’ve had our ups an down this year. But, what I’ve really tried to look at today, is the smaller, minuscule changes that we don’t notice until years down the road.
View from the run, as the sun went down.
Years of Firsts 