"Progress is difficult to define because it depends on who is doing the defining..."

Micheal Chorost - Science Writer based in Washington DC wrote in the New Scientist 2012
"Progress is difficult to define because it depends on who is doing the defining"

How do you define progress? Is it by the new house that you aspire to live in one day? The new car? The next job or the next experience that will  move you away from pain and closer to pleasure?


Our definition of progress is purely relevant to the challenges that we perceive we are up against. We may be moving in a certain direction and then out of the blue (or so it seems) a catastrophe happens and we become constrained and our development is taken in a new direction...or is it?


In the billions of years that this planet has been evolving...there has been one catastrophe after another. As the universe has evolved and aged, the systems within it have grown ever more complex. Once the earth was nothing more than a piece of hot molten rock circling the sun...A collision with a huge meterorite allowed the moon to be born and slowly the earth has evolved from being amongst the stars and galaxies, into a planet with bacteria, plants, animals, brains, societies and technologies.


Put into this context we can see the sophistication over time and earth and it's inhabitant's development has continued to move in a direction. Evolution though subjected to ice ages, fire, flood and natural disaster has been constrained from time to time but evolved just the same. Direction however has not defined purpose.


Your definition of progress will definatively define the purpose behind your motivations.
It will influence not only what you do but how you go about it...


To me being able to step outside of your comfort zone and take a risk...is a sign of progress. To not fear failure but be able to feel the joy of taking steps in the direction of your dreams is progress, To me stopping still long enough to move beyond the logistics of your life into self care, nurture and education is progress.
To me being able to acknowledge, feel and move beyond the frightened parts of your personality is progress.


To understand change is the natural order of things and to be able to recharge your spirit and reinvent the parts your personality that are not in alignment with the you. that you know you can be, is progress. 




How do you define progress? It really is a question worth pondering...