In respect to growth in personhood and personal development, there exist two kinds of people in this world.

One kind of persons is self-driven in terms of their growth. They have no need to depend on others to direct their growth, for they are like wild weeds by the wayside that survive through any sort of climate and keep growing anyway. They are like the chameleon which finds itself in a variety of environments, absorbs their colour, and adapts without much fuss. In adapting, they learn. And learn. And learn.

They are innately on a constant lookout for new impetuses in their environment which provide for further self-development, and almost never miss a chance to seize such opportunities. Their learning never stops and they are constantly evolving at a fast pace, onward towards betterment and perfection.

For such, there is never a moment when they are found to be static or in the same condition as when you last met them. Meet them a month later and they would have progressed as persons. Because they are consistently striving to reach higher, deeper, wider, and farther.

Another kind of persons progress at snail pace. They are not self-driven and are very dependent on others for their learning. They possess few or no skills in the acquirement of knowledge and self-development. Without someone in their lives to deliberately impart, they go almost nowhere and remain as they are intellectually, linguistically, vocationally, and spiritually.

Such people are highly in need of at least one other person, of the first kind, to lead them in their journey. Without such a person in their lives, they would not have progressed much further beyond where they were since you last met them three months ago.

Life for them is somewhat static; progress is so gradual and negligible it's almost undetectable. Meet them sometime later, and you'll notice that they still write the same way, speak the same things, and spew the same set of knowledge skills they flaunted when you last interacted with them a considerably long time ago.

Ironically, it is often the second type of persons who think they can make it on their own.