#954 Grow! Grow! Grow!

Our Inner Evolutionary Imperatives Exhorting Us to Optimize

This morning I started my day pretty much like every other day.

Of course, Today started last night with the PM Bookend. Eat early. Shut down complete. Digital sunset. Etc.

Then fam time. Highlight of that included me watching Emerson and Eleanor in the bath while Mom was on a little self-care walk.

Emerson decided to give himself a super deep clean vs. the normal soak/light wash. I asked him what the special occasion was.

His response?

(I’m getting an ab workout laughing so hard as I get ready to type the next line…)

He says, “Well, every once a year or so you need to really clean.”

Me (stifling laughter): “Oh yah? That’s a good point.”

Emerson: “Yah. If you go two or three years without it, you get really dirty.”

H
A
H

True story! I couldn’t make that up if I tried. 😍

So…

Back to this morning.

I got up early (but now after my 10 hours in bed). Somehow setting a new personal best Oura Readiness score of 98. (I’m still kinda flabbergasted at how fun it’s been to learn how to game that ring while feeling qualitative benefits in addition to the numerical Optimizations AND using the inevitable dips as opportunities to get even more clarity on what variables in my routines work and don’t work.)

Then I did my meditation. New anchor: “Thank you.” Then I did my quick movement series. Then I started the ol’ Timex watch on another AM1 90-minute Deep Work session. I started with a quick glance at the stack of kind words I’ve received from you and our other Heroes. I have that stack on the upper left corner of my desk at all times. It’s a constant source of inspiration.

Then I did my quick 5-minute Carpe Diem journaling, capturing my Identities + Virtues + Behaviors for Energy + Work + Love. With a bonus “Thank you!” reflection on what’s working in each of those areas as well.

Then… I opened up Eknath Easwaran’s Words to Live By to read a couple pages of spiritual inspiration before jumping into +1 creation.

And THAT gets us to the point of Today’s +1.

Here’s the passage I read and reflected on this morning.

It started with a quote from Yogabindu Upanishad: “Like a ball batted back and forth, a human being is batted by two forces within.

Then Easwaran reflects on that gem by saying: “As human beings we have a divided nature — partly physical, but essentially spiritual. We are constantly batted by two conflicting forces. One force is the fierce downward thrust of our past conditioning as separate, self-oriented, physical creatures. Yet built into our very nature is an inner drive that will not let us be satisfied with a life governed only by biological laws. Some inner evolutionary imperative is constantly exhorting us to grow, to reach for the highest that we can conceive.

That last line got an underline from me: “Some inner evolutionary imperative is constantly exhorting us to grow, to reach for the highest that we can conceive.

Then I thought of Steven Pressfield’s great parallel wisdom from The War of Art where he tells us: “Kabbalists believe that above every blade of grass is an angel crying ‘Grow! Grow!’ I’ll go further. I believe that above the entire human race is one super-angel, crying ‘Evolve! Evolve!’

Then, as I typed all that out, I thought of Eric Butterworth and his wisdom on the same theme. In Spiritual Economics, he tells us: “It is interesting to note that there is mounting evidence for the existence of … ‘syntropy,’ through the influence of which forms tend to reach higher and higher levels of organization, order, and dynamic harmony. Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, Nobel Prize winning biologist, refers to it as an ‘innate drive in living matter to perfect itself.’ And today many are calling attention to a psychological drive toward synthesis, toward wholeness and self-perfection.

And that’s Today’s +1.

Let’s take a moment to see the two forces within ourselves.

And, let’s choose to pay special attention to that inner evolutionary imperative that is constantly (!) exhorting us to grow and to reach for the highest that we can conceive.

Let’s all say it (and live it!) together:

GROW! GROW! GROW!

EVOLVE! EVOLVE! EVOLVE!!

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