Oxford Dictionaries define outgrowing as “grow too big for (something).” // “leave behind as one matures.” Lately, I’ve been thinking about outgrowing, about the painful experience that outgrowing implies.

I’ve outgrown my college years. Happy as I was then, I wouldn’t go back to them. Because I now see the bubble that college is. I now know the realities of living a more mature lifestyle just as much as I know the joys of it.
I’ve outgrown friends, due to one’s fault really. Because life is like that… kind enough to connect you with people who resonate with you in a specific way for a specific period of your life, but cruel enough to take each of you onto different paths. And that’s okay.
I’ve outgrown jobs; jobs that were right for a specific time in my life: some gave me the warm comfort that came from the longevity and familiarity of it, some pushed me to be brave, to believe I could do hard things, some made me humble, some enhanced abilities for which I am grateful today. But at some point, in all of them, I reached a point where I needed to move on for reasons as different as day and night; but all with the shared reason that I had already learned the lesson(s) I needed to learn.
I’ve outgrown places too. I outgrew my one-bedroom rental in Texas. I outgrew my apartment in D.C. I outgrew apartments in Mexico City. And, though hard to accept, perhaps I have also outgrown the apartment that I have loved the absolute most: the apartment that for four years held me in my solitude and brokenness, the apartment that carried me through many disappointments, the apartment that celebrated a few major, life-changing milestones, but also many—perhaps mundane, but just as necessary—minor daily wins. Perhaps I’ve outgrown Cornerstone #55 too.

But also implicit with outgrowing, comes the (sometimes unknown) blessing of starting new seasons of life, of making new friends, of findings new jobs, of filling up new spaces. Maybe even the opportunity to start all over again, just with the big difference of now being a better, stronger, and hopefully, a kinder version of yourself.

One of the things I hate about watching the Super Bowl in Mexico is that I don’t get to see all the commercials. Because who am I kidding? I am there only of the commercials and the food. I have not seen all of the 2021 commercials, but I don’t have to because THIS takes the cake.

Like what a brilliant idea was it to change the lyrics of 9 to 5 (the iconic hymn of the working class!) to not only promote, but even encourage entrepreneurship. I remember reading in Outliers by Malcom Gladwell, that entrepreneurs are influenced by the constraints and events of their times. Additionally, children are influenced by their parent’s success in their careers/jobs (frustratingly, I cannot remember where I read this). I find it interesting to see many people starting new businesses while this pandemic has been going on. In fact, in March 2020, there were 804,398 businesses that were less than 1 year old, an increase on the March 2019 figure of 770,609. If starting a new business and materializing an idea requires such bravery and courage, I cannot image the additional amount that it requires to start a new business that starting a new business take.

Recently I have seen so many people starting a new business and it has been so refreshing, even contagious. I believe that at some point we all think about starting a new business, and maybe we all should try, in as much as possible, to make it happen. Even if it fails, I think there are many valuable lessons that can be learned from building something from the ground up.