Many years ago, a younger colleague unequivocally and with great wisdom boldly asserted that no one changes.
He was an engineer, and speaking in factual, authoritative tones comes easily to them. Writer me responded with, but we humans do change, we keep redesigning ourselves throughout our lives, growing into different versions of who we are and who we want to be. Our debate on the topic kept us entertained for a week. We never did resolve our different points of view, which was fine.
Changing exterior things is easy. You can change:
Growing takes determination and hard work.
You broaden your life by:
Learning the unknown,
Loving from the depths of your heart,
Expanding your world with travel,
But does this cultivation of the new change you?
Who We Are
People start life displaying a certain amount of defined characteristics. From birth when a parent recognizes that this baby always smiles, that one is serene or another doesn’t sleep because, maybe she’ll (me) miss what’s going on, there are parts of us that may stay the course throughout our lives.
Somewhere along the way many of us lose ourselves, with circumstances initiating transformations wanted or not. If we’re lucky, and determined, we recover the best parts of who we were. We work to steer our path toward who we want to be by enhancing underlying childhood. In the end—as if there is ever an end to the evolution of us—what we have is a more defined version of who we already were.
Haven’t you seen it? We become better at being what we already are. If we had a temper, but are a basically happy person, the temper mellows. Often, if we are temperamental and unhappy, the temper becomes volatile.
Do Humans Change
I question change and the people who say those words with profound conviction. “I changed, now I am….” State instead, “Look at how I’ve grown—see how much like myself I once again seem to be.” But changed? No, not really. I’ve simply gotten better at being me.
There was once a poor marital choice, purposeful distance from my family by the husband (my culpability is always wanting adventure and I did, at least, gain everlasting friends from the California relocation), and a real Sleeping With the Enemy existence. His exploitation was so gradual and smoothly executed that I didn’t realize how much of the relationship was his sheer overpowering of all things me.
Segue to the move to the Montana, being around my older sister and her family. After yet another odd spousal interaction, Jackie blurted, “What happened to my sister? I want her back!” I had changed, but not for the better. Rather I was diminished due to constant manipulation—alteration to one personality caused by another. Unlikely to be permanent once you’ve extricated yourself from a clingy entanglement.
Learning From Kids
When you watch children interact, especially when they’re roleplaying, they are open about who they are. Kids are blatant and demanding, and the world revolves around them. Children have the right idea. Think how happy a toddler is when they make a statement of need and receive what they want. It is not the same for grownups. We maneuver ourselves or others and judge and think-through and analyze and decide what is okay, what isn’t okay, what could be okay if only…. Each choice gets weighed against our past and what we perceive as the future, which we can’t control anyway.
The older I get, the more I come to the belief it is through age that we discover we must let experience more than that debating guide our decisions and involvements with people.
Do You Take Life Risks
Change and growth, either one, are derived from taking risks. From stepping outside the safety net of the known and plunging forward in an unvarying leap of faith. I love the line from The Mummy movie, when Rick says, “I only gamble with my life, never my money.” That sentence is a complete character sketch and I find myself agreeing with it. I may not risk my life in physical ways, but I do risk where I am and what I’m doing within my physical bounds. You won’t find me at Atlantic City or Las Vegas in any fast hurry to spend even the normal-citizen minimum of $200 at the blackjack table. I’d rather have travel cash in my pocket than risk losing dollars to something I can’t control like a slot machine.
But If I don’t try experiments with my life, then why keep living? If I don’t get to know different people, read other genre books, see an assortment of movies, eat unique foods, travel to any destination, go to a museum I wouldn’t normally be attracted to, then what is the point in continuing to breathe? Those activities help me grow, keep me going back to the person I should be, the person who was whole the day she was born when God first let her loose in the world.
Changing Our Opinions, Changing Our Minds
I will change my mind about things along the way. But none of it will change me as a person. I won’t suddenly decide to become bigoted or prejudiced. Although my childhood world was white as could be, I was not raised to be a racist, nor did life lead me down that narrow-minded path. My father worked building railroad cars and as I came to the age of understanding prejudice, I asked him if he worked with any black people. Yes, he answered. And, I asked what were they like? He smiled and said, “The same as white people—there are good ones and there are lazy ones. People are the same no matter the color of their skin.”
When I was old enough to read about World War II and the concentration camps, I couldn’t wrap my mind around how anyone would want to obliterate a group of people. My mother was raised a staunch Catholic and I asked her, what does anyone have against the Jews? She shrugged and said that she didn’t understand it, that although a group of Jewish leaders who felt their power threatened by Jesus urged Pontius Pilate to kill Christ, it wasn’t logical to hold today’s Jews accountable for those actions.
I won’t throw my core beliefs out the window and go 180° in the other direction. But I will change my opinion, liberating my mind from old confines. I may learn to enjoy something new, much like cooking with onions. As a child, I picked onions out of dishes, as an adult I relish slicing, sautéing, and devouring them.
To My Young Friend
Years after our discussion, I’m sticking with the belief people change, evolve, and grow throughout the decades of our lives. You?
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More pondering about change: Do you marvel at the differences in people?
A very interesting and thought provoking blog.And yes I fully agree that as we age we become more aware and understanding.Yes we evolve and become better.We do not necessarily become butterflies from caterpillars but we do evolve.
True analogy–we don’t always turn into a butterfly, but we often turn into a better version of ourselves.
My therapist (wise and fabulous woman of a young 81 years that she is) says that true change in people usually only tends to come about as a result of true upheaval. It took some really horrific upsets this last four years to make me start to truly change and grow, and it hasn’t been easy. A person also has to be willing to to the work for well. Maybe I was getting a bit complacent after the first upheaval of Dirtbag hitting the road, so the universe was like, “Nope, you’re not listening. Have some cancer! That will knock you back on track.” So I truly do believe people can change, but it takes a lot to kick that change into gear at times.
I agree with you and your fab therapist, Jeri–it takes something big to push people into change, but they have to be willing to see the need for change and do the work connected to it. It’s not easy! I find it amazing to observe people who have had a dramatic, traumatic event hit them and they stay exactly the same. I can’t imagine that! You are kicking the butt of everything coming at you!
Wonderful post RoseMary. We do not completely change but develop on who we are. Some character traits were always there but may have laid dormant for a number of years. You mention morphing into someone you did not recognise when in a unhealthy relationship. I have had periods of my life, some rather painful where I tolerated what I would never have expected. We are constantly learning about ourselves and others.
Thank you, Phoenicia. Realizing all this as an adult makes it easy to have compassion for kids, doesn’t it? Not just remembering when we were that age, but what it must be like today with the impact of social media on everyone’s life.
Here’s to being us!
Very insightful post, Rose. I’d never thought about it before, but you are right. I don’t think we can truly change ourselves or others. We can encourage, facilitate, and nurture growth, and hopefully that will change the results we see from behaviour, but I don’t believe we can change the essence of who we or others are.
Thanks, Doreen, for the compliment. You are right with changing results with a whole lot of work. But I think some things about us are hard-wired in and then supported throughout life by habits (which can be changed!) we get into. I’m thinking, this morning, about my mom. She was so guarded with me throughout her life, yet on her death bed, she was the sweetest person–her true self coming through the disease (or overcoming in that manner) and letting me know the woman dad fell in love with. That was a gift.
Rose, I love this: ” I’ve gotten better at being me.” So glad. I think we’re all good “me’s” when we’re babies. Then we get socialized and try to fit in and often lost the best part of ourselves in that process. But, I think – if we’re open to change and growth – we get the opportunity all over again (if we’re lucky) to re-learn how to be our best selves.
An observation/question about your comment on not suddenly deciding to become bigoted or prejudiced. My observations of others who seem to me to be bigoted or prejudiced is that they aren’t aware of it. Do you think it’s a choice? Learned behavior? Unquestioned beliefs?
Glad you like that phrase, Karen. I just had that conversation with a friend this afternoon. That maybe if an older person has dementia or something where they miss a beat or two now and then…and they become different from what they’ve been…that perhaps they are reverting back to who they started as.
About prejudice. Yes, I think that beyond how a person is raised, if they have any awareness at all, they can make the choice of opening their minds and not being prejudiced or bigoted. Learned behavior that they never questioned.