Growth inside is the counterweight to growth outside.
Allow me to explain.
If you spend your days growing on the outside, that is, honing your “doing” skills and fail to grow on the inside, the resulting imbalance will eventually lead to implosion. If, on the other hand, inner growth in any person or collection of persons counterbalances outer growth, there will be stability, safety and sanity.
Growth, in this sense, is the natural oscillation of inner and outer growth. Inner growth is spiritual and character development, the wider expression of “being,” while outer growth is the refinement of the tools used to do or “achieve”.
It’s usually better for inner growth to precede outer growth, but the cart is occasionally put before the horse. This is no big deal unless it becomes chronically imbalanced.
In fact, the problems faced by most individuals and the structural dislocations experienced by the world’s great civilizations can be traced back to this one chronic imbalance.
Gregory Hake 
You can see the imbalance of too much inner growth or too much outer growth in some characters that show up in our culture. Compare the “guru” or the “intellectual” that has too much inner growth but no practicality to the “achiever” type that is all outer growth with nothing much going on inside.
I am not really sure if we have an archetype for a balanced man or woman who does there best to match inner growth to outer. Maybe the character is hard to write into fiction because the example has been displayed so sparsely that it seems too fantastical.
I do know that someone who is wise will do their best to match inner and outer growth, never letting one outpace the other too much. In this way we get our best leverage.
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I hear you loud and clear!
Thanks for answering my question!
Would the experience of some inner turbulence when making the transition, be expected?
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Great post! Your words provide the answer to the insanity in the world. There must be inner growth in a sufficient number of people for a rightful balance in humanity for as you say stability, safety and sanity to be known. Your blog points the way for all of us to so participate. We all do have an influence on each other whether it can be visibly seen or not. Remembering this and our responsibility of inner growth and character is vital for a well world.
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It seems that inner growth tends to stop at a very early age. Once the parent is no longer encouraging correct attitudes and behavior, the “adult,” then just enters the mass of the living and slots into a variety of roles. If we don’t continue to grow on the inside, then all we are left with is a hollow shell and we can see how this is revealed with the traditional mid-life crisis. Growing on the inside takes caring more about how you affect those around you than how they affect you. Just a few other qualities that I see are guilelessness, passion, curiosity and the courage to walk upstream.
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One can see why so many people are ‘overwhelmed by success.’ The same principle is true of accumulation of wealth. Unless it is balanced by development of character and wisdom, it becomes a burden or even a destroyer.
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Celebrities and lottery winners many times become unwitting poster children for this. Growth on the inside would seem to help facilitate it on the outside, given that self discipline is often a byproduct of character. Good post to consider, thank you.
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Interesting…..many a ‘genius’ in their craft often have quite disturbed personalities, and as such never realize their full potential. As amazing as their contributions are, they are tainted with some kind of mania which then gives the impression that to truly reach exceptional heights, one has to be manic in some way; it’s the ‘price’ of originality.
Given your consideration, that need not be. Overall balanced development begets a long life of originality and creativity. And of course, true happiness, which oftentimes eludes one-sided brilliance.
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