Reflecting on an unexpected growth in business revenue during the pandemic of 2020, a client sagely quoted the naturalist Edward Abbey: “Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.” Or of a coronavirus, one might say these days.

If my client’s business were a tree, one could say that it is producing more fruit than he expected. He’d probably say the unexpected quantity is even weighing down the branches as he’s looking to hire new team members to relieve that pressure. As long as his motivation is to care for his overburdened employees or serve his clients better, he’s avoiding the “ideology of the cancer cell.” It’s growth for the sake of a higher value.

But when growth becomes the highest value of a company, all sorts of dangers lurk in justifying this good-sounding end by potentially harmful means. At what human cost does the acquisition of the fast-growing tech startup come? How do you know when to stop? Does the market (perhaps the ultimate limiting force) have a conscience?

Whether it’s a dogwood or a redwood, a tree will only grow so large. After it reaches its limit, its only growth is by multiplication, by creating seedlings. A single tree is limited by its environmental context. Perhaps that’s the most important difference between the tree and the cancer cell. The tree is limited by the other elements in its environment. The cancer cell’s ability to exist in a system with other kinds of cells is compromised by an operational defect that makes it—to anthropomorphize—an idiot, caring only about itself and its perpetuation through uncontrolled, destructive proliferation.

Unlike the tree and the cancer cell, living things with consciousness can choose the kind of growth they seek, both for themselves and for the conscious systems in which they work and live.