Human Development By Linda Stowe
My B.A. is in human development, a nebulous term that could be about anything relating to how humans change over time. It could be focused on physiology, ranging from fetal development to aging. Or it could be about how we learn. Or how civilizations develop.
It is none of that. In my degree human development refers to how the individual moves from one stage in life to the next. It is literally about how we learn to crawl before we walk and what that means to us. As we grow and develop, life presents a series of tasks. As we master one challenge, we trade it off for the next with each accomplishment building upon the ones before. Newborns have a lot on their plate. There is so much to learn, starting with where to find the milk.
But we are never satisfied. Finding out where the milk comes from might elate the newborn for a while but once that is learned, it looks around for the next challenge. Like, what is that big face I see smiling down on me?
While it might seem that we resolve most of our challenges by the time we reach adulthood, we actually continue to develop throughout our lives. The achievements may not be as noticeable as taking that first step, but they are there if you look for them. The important thing is to keep looking for them.
Wordle guess words: about, trade, stage, plate, elate
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Polly here.
I absolutely loved this. Every word. I am in an ongoing stage of human development. I’m still trying to figure things out, one day at a time.
I wonder this. Do ALL people keep looking? Linda mentioned that we are never satisfied. Is that true of everyone? Because I know some people who seem pretty stagnant. Maybe they look in ways that I’m unaware of.
On the flip side, I know many people who expand their worlds each and every day. They do it in small ways. Sometimes they do it in large ways. But the important thing is that they continue to look, and grow, and learn.
I wish everyone could do this. Grow for good.
