Growth Is Often Forgetting What We Already Know

​I watched a news piece yesterday in ESPN's pre-Super Bowl coverage about Ryan Quigley and his friendship with Tiger Bech. The two friends were victims of the New Year's Eve terrorist attack in New Orleans.

Quigley was seriously injured in the attack; Bech was killed.

Bech was a huge Philadelphia Eagles fan, and Quigley had told him that if the Eagles made it to the Super Bowl this year, he'd buy them both tickets and they’d go to the game.

Then the tragedy.

Bech was killed before Quigley had the chance to keep that promise—because the Eagles did, indeed, make the Super Bowl.

Quigley had vowed never to return to New Orleans after the attack, a vow he was deeply committed to keeping. But then the Eagles stepped in and offered him tickets to the game. In the story, it was shared that Quigley ultimately decided that going back to New Orleans for the game was the best way he had to keep a promise he’d made to his best friend.

As the hosts commented after the story, Jason Kelce, a retired Philadelphia Eagle and a man beloved by the city, broke down in tears. He couldn’t speak. He had met Quigley and was deeply touched by the story.

After seeing that, I commented on social media that it was a beautiful display—a grown man crying on national television over a deeply moving event. I honored him for giving men like me permission to cry.

A dear friend reached out to me after I shared that and said, “You are growing so much.”

Her words caught me off guard, but they meant the world to me. These days, my life’s goal IS growth. But Steven Furtick said something in his sermon yesterday that helped me reframe how I think about growth. He said, “A lot of what we call growth is forgetting what we thought we knew.”

I used to think big boys don’t cry. That’s what I was taught growing up. I saw it all around me—big boys don’t cry. It was just the culture embraced by big boys back then. (And based on some of the discomfort on the faces of Kelce’s co-hosts as he sobbed, I’m not sure that culture is entirely back then.)

I do think about my growth, about the person I’ve become, and how so much of that growth isn’t about learning something new—it’s about leaving behind things I once learned. So much of who we are is dictated by the patterns wired into us, patterns we follow mindlessly.

I am grateful that over the last decade, I’ve learned that not crying—not sharing emotions—is actually more bomb than glue when it comes to relationships.

I am grateful that I’ve come to believe not only that big boys cry, but that they must.

Big boys must cry.

They must, or they will allow their insides to be flooded by the tears that so naturally want to express all that those insides experience—the good, the bad, and the ugly.

A flood that will ultimately destroy everything in its path—inside AND out.

I have grown. It’s true. Partly because of wisdom I’ve picked up along the way. But largely because of a wisdom that has allowed me to leave an awful lot behind.

A wisdom that allowed me to see Jason Kelce crying and think, Thank God, big boys really do cry.

They must.