Spiritual Growth & Capitalist Accumulation Aren’t the Same but We Act Like They Are
We're not tools or products, so why do we treat ourselves like we are?
What does spiritual growth look like?
For me, it’s always felt like expansion—not like a rising bar, but like a widening circle. But it’s also felt like an expansion of depth. Some of my favorite Jesus stories is when he stops and pays attention to people everyone else overlooked. My faith has always expanded my perspective, and inspired me to look deeper into everything and everyone.
What you receive in your spiritual journey is a different way of engaging with everything around you. If you have, for example, ten significant things in your life, spirituality isn’t like an eleventh thing. Spirituality transforms the way you experience those ten things you’ve always had.
But that’s not really how I hear spiritual growth talked about these days.
Unfortunately, the capitalistic idea of endless economic growth influences the way we talk about any kind of growth. Even when we talk about getting better at our physical or intellectual skills, we’re pushed to aim toward getting good enough to turn our skills into a business. But why would that be the pinnacle of growing your talents and passions? There’s an unnatural influence there that we should be aware of.
In capitalism it’s either grow, or die. A company must accumulate more and more wealth and investments increasingly year after year to survive. And in a system of endless production for endless accumulation profit is always prioritized over people. The survival of this system is dependent on keeping a disciplined working class to do the labor required for corporations to keep growing. Our whole life we’re indoctrinated to adopt and internalize capitalist logic so that we keep the system going (and growing!). So when it comes to our ideas around growth, we all have some unlearning to do.
We have to separate our concept of growth from accumulation.
Capitalist logic infects everything, so of course, that includes our ideas about spirituality and spiritual growth. And now we’ve reached a strange point where we act like spiritual growth is determined by how much wealth and success you can manifest for yourself, or how much specialized sacred knowledge you have, or how visible your devotion is to your God, your church, your faith, and your search for purpose.
The constant usage of the word, “enough” in these conversations is also strange, isn’t it? We wonder, am I spiritual enough? Am I religious enough? Am I faithful enough? Am I praying enough? Am I meditating enough? Am I reading the Bible enough? Am I close enough to God? And it’s all as if we’re at risk of losing something.
If we think about spiritual growth like economic growth then we’ll never be enough. But if we can separate the two then our questions about being enough become irrelevant to our growth. We’re not products. We’re not tools. We’re not machines. So why do we treat ourselves like we are?
Have you ever talked about spiritual practices with a friend and felt the need to add the disclaimer, “but I don’t do it as much I should”? Why do we say that? Who’s determining those ‘should’s for us and why do we let them?
When I talk about growth I’m talk about something much simpler.
When I first started meditating I was desperate to find peace and clarity. And so I wondered when the meditation would start ‘working’. I couldn’t feel any immediate difference in my life so I was worried I was doing something wrong. Then I heard someone say something that I’ll never forget. They said you typically won’t notice any significant differences from meditating for quite a while. But one day, months later—maybe even years later—you’ll look back and realize how much you’ve changed.
The same goes for spiritual growth. One day you’ll look back and see the growth. And you will keep growing because you keep living. Throw off all your ‘should’s and ‘supposed to’s. It’s not about who you think you are or you think you aren’t.
Ask yourself, “Who am I becoming?”
Are you satisfied with the answer? Do you hate it? Are you unsure? Proceed from there.
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Love your work! Been following you for awhile now. I wonder in you'd consider making video essays out of your newsletter content it's so potent and important and I feel it's easier to share with others as well as watch while doing other things (in this capitalist socioty lol) then in written format but this stuff is SOOOO important this is the MEAT so to speak and I am really greatful for your work and how much heart and soul you put into it. Thank you.
I’d love to take this a step further - what does a Christian life look like separated from capitalism?