In modern culture, being a person to some extent is already a template and a duty, as is customary. If a person has his own (some, albeit small, but his own) I, is free, independent and responsible within the framework of cultural patterns, at the level of accepted standards, this is a natural person. This is a passenger who rides cheerfully in the carriage of the train of life, serves and entertains himself — but his life goes along the rails that he did not lay.
Does the natural person have personal growth? There are, of course, naturally. All children, by virtue of natural biological maturation and the cares of their parents, grow up in their psychological and educational level to kindergarten, then to school, school raises them to college, then life pushes them to subsequent adulthood … This is natural, or passive personal growth: an increase in opportunities personality, determined by biological programs and cultural norms of society.
What in the subjective world of a person is called «I want» and «has become accustomed».
In passive personal growth, the intellect and psychological culture grow naturally, just as the human body grows. Life goes on — buttocks grow, hair grows, intelligence slowly develops, and gradually, in the process of life, psychological culture is naturally formed. Inner potential — positive or negative forces within a person, unconscious impulses — add up to the natural influence of the environment (through suggestion, samples and infection) and life circumstances.
Passive personal growth is normally imperceptible, it is noticed only when failures occur in it. If a child has a lag in natural personal growth, psychologists will talk about his unpreparedness for school. If a man at the age of thirty talks like a teenager, this is an infantile, this is a lag in natural personal growth. If a husband at thirty-seven leaves a good family and leaves a prestigious job, there is a hypothesis that this is an age-related personality crisis, a difficulty in natural personal growth. But if there is no lag, if there are no crises, no one notices this passive personal growth, because everyone has it.
In the broadest sense, passive personal growth is the alternation of stages of personality development from birth to old age, the correct passage of the stage of childhood, adolescence, youth, youth, maturity, preparation for old age. Is it possible, however, to consider as personal growth the stage of maturity, when growth essentially stops? Or old age, when there are already processes of degradation, and even disintegration of the personality? In a narrower sense, passive personal growth is called only that period of a person’s life path, when qualitative changes (unfolding) of a person’s potential occur, contributing to a more successful solution of life tasks and opening up a greater wealth of life prospects. Usually it is youth, youth and, sometimes, maturity.
It is important to remember that passive personal growth can be supplemented by active personal growth — growth and development that occurs as a result of the author’s initiatives of the person himself.