# Chapter 117 “We outgrow clothes the same way we outgrow people, Len. We change inside the same way we do outside.” Zapata

You better! Change that is, because if you are not, then you are already dead or dying, and there is no change-the-world left in you.

It took me a very long time to understand you outgrow people. Family is the exception, you are obligated to stay with them and try your damnedest to bring them along with you and push them ahead of you. Everyone else is outgrowable. I stunted my own development for years by not letting go of people I had outgrown. And predictably, they held me back. In fact, they regularly sabotaged any efforts I made to grow or succeed or develop in any appreciative measure. This does not mean I have animosity toward them, but it does mean that I choose to have minimal contact with them so that their defertilization of my hopes and mind is inconsequential. You may find that you need ever more robust relationships as you grow older. More robust thinkers!

I regularly surround myself with people who are smarter than me, so that I can soak them up and grow and change. More robust world-changers! I need (and most others need also I think) people who can see the world differently than I do, and bigger, and smaller too. So that I can gain a more developed understanding of what’s at stake, what needs to change, the complexities of how to change it, the part I could play in changing it, etc, etc.

While I am not at all suggesting we change friends like we change clothes, we do outgrow people and we need to let them go, and get some new fresh relationships so that we can be the best version of ourselves. Today I am purposefully spending most of the day with such a person. Maybe you should too?