In June, I wrote a blog post about my friend Kim who resolved to change her wanton ways in order to better attract the loving, committed relationship she craves. Kim has spent most of her thirty-plus years supplementing her life as a brilliant, professionally successful dynamo with moments being a horny, somewhat debauched wild child. Kim finally realized the romantic patterns in which she has entangled herself keep her from the life she wants. Now, she’s ready to change.
A few days after posting the blog, I got a comment from a reader who thinks Kim’s desires to evolve are doomed. According to him, “how a person has lived his or her life is the only indicator we have to predict how they will live the rest of it.”
Ouch.
The letter got me thinking about all the people I know who’ve either changed successfully, or wanted to change but failed miserably. A gal pal of mine used to be a directionless, pot smoking drunk whose greatest ambition in life was to wake up before noon. She called me one morning having just snorted a mound of coke with a complete stranger she’d also had sex with. Exactly the kind of wake up call my friend needed. Today, she’s a sober, married mom with a good job. Another friend stayed in the same dead-end career for nearly fifteen years and had barely eked out a social life. Almost forty, she hadn’t had a romantic relationship since college. Last year, she got a new job, a new boyfriend and a new lease on life.
Being a person who thrives on change, and who’s apt to stir some up when there isn’t enough coming, I can’t understand people who are afraid of the stuff. However, I’ve known plenty of people who can’t seem to recognize the bad behaviors that keep them spiraling into endless voids of misery and disappointment.
The worst are those of us who regularly fall for emotionally stunted men. Guys who drink too much, treat the women who love them like afterthoughts or invest in video game collections rather than relationships. Friends tell us, “give up, he’ll never change.” But who wants to believe the person you’re crazy about will always have the same weaknesses that stop him or her from being the partner you need.
Sometimes I guess it’s true certain folks will never change. But is it always?
What say you?
I say, “sure we can!” The day I stop wanting to learn or experience something new, the day I stop being curious…that’s the day I say the possibility of change is gone and not a minute before.
I feel sorry for the guy that thinks people can’t change. Guess he’s talking about himself. Too bad!
I think people can change their behavior, but I don’t think the core of you as a person ever changes. Like your pot-smoking, directionless friend; her life is very different, but if she wasn’t at heart a good person then, she wouldn’t have been and stayed your friend and she wouldn’t have wanted to make the change to become who she is now.
So a boyfriend that is at heart selfish and thoughtless can behave better, but likely deep down will never become the selfless lover of your dreams. And a kind heart is a kind heart no matter what the exterior behaviors are.
Or such is my experience, ymmv
Lucky Bum, you echoed my thoughts! Curiosity is definitely the key to change. Curiosity about oneself, maybe?
Jazz, I LOVE the idea that change comes from some inner “good” self that eventually strive to manifest. So interesting and true!
Thanks!
The topics you deal with this post are interesting in and of themselves…what’s more interesting to me is the way you choose to end this post; with more of a confession rather than a question.
to me the real question you are asking is if Kim can really ever change and if Kim really truly wants to change. because i dont know Kim personally, what follows is nothing more than wild conjecture. i feel that Kim has chosen to ‘love’ a person not for who they are but for who they could potentially be and so she is doomed to asking herself these sorts of questions and to the torment that it brings her. but why does she love him? is it real or is it just another way to avoid ever having to realize the change Kim says she wants? this is one surefire way to avoid dealing with that question in an honest and fulfilling way, by pinning her want for commitment and loving relationships on ‘emotionally stunted men.’
It feels as though Kim is trying to come to terms with the realization that she may never change and may not ever want to..and whose to say there’s anything wrong with that?
If Kim were my friend, the only advice I’d give her is to make sure that she never lets her desire for ‘change’ dominate and alter her personality to the point where someone falls in love with the image of this change that hasn’t and may never materialize…unless of course she wants to be the one treating the man that loves her ‘like [an] afterthought.’
Absolutely some people can change. I know, because I did, and I have the results to show for it.
However, that’s not true for everyone and honest to God, my take on it is that very few can or do change.
It has to do with self-knowledge and self-perception. A person who is troubled by habitual behaviour more often than not has no clue as to why he behaves the way he does. He may recognize that his behaviour is destructive and he may want to change it, but…unless he knows how he got there, and what the root cause of his behaviour is, he won’t be successful.
My experience is that very few people truly know themselves. Hence, they act according to type – almost a knee-jerk reactionary existence. They will always hate men (or women) and not know why; they will always want to correct others, and not know why; they will always allow themselves to be doormats and not know why.
Those of us who were fortunate to get good psychological counselling, or who were brought up in healthy homes and taught to think for ourselves, stand a better chance to change our behaviours than others.
What a thought-provoking post! I feel like writing and writing here but won’t. This is your blog, not mine. *grin*
Of course we can change. Otherwise I’d still be snorting speed for breakfast, smoking 40 cigarettes a day and piercing my hoo-hoo and fucking everyone who caught my fancy and stealing things from shops and oh ya, don’t forget that stint I did as a hooker on the other side of the world…
We grow up. Simple as that. If our adolescent experiments don’t ruin or addict us then we just grow out of them. By elimination we realize what we don’t want. Then we seek out what we do what.
Kim can be who she wants but so can everybody else. So we don’t get to judge or try to change them while they’re sleeping with everything with a pulse or investing in their video game collection.
If I can change anyone can change.
I am so fucking respectable.
I agree, the key is knowing yourself, Wolfshade. That’s the key to everything, I guess. The people I know who’ve changed some serious patterns always hit a wall where they really came to see themselves clearly and fearlessly. Then again, I know lots of people who have no idea who they are, and those are the ones who break your heart.
And I like Raoul’s suggestion that maybe Kim doesn’t want to change though feels pressured.
And my sister from the vaterland is more than respectable. She’s awesome!
Know thyself!
True, true & true. People usually find themselves as they grow wiser which entails time. We’ve all had our moments I’m sure. Until then, appreciate the difference for without it, what a boring world it would be….imperfection is eminent for us all.
Peace!….with 2 fingers;)
At last! Someone who unedrsntads! Thanks for posting!