People don’t change and that has been my experience. And that is a good thing.
Yes, we can make superficial changes and modify our behaviors. We can learn to eat better and we can adopt kinder responses to people and situations. Our viewpoints can shift and grow and we can learn to do things better and accept more and tame our impulses.
But in the core of core, we remain the same person. What moves us and, more importantly, what makes us rigid almost never budge. Our most protective instinct is like a core of the Earth that spins and determines the general workings of who we are. I don’t know for sure what shapes our basal m.o., but I’d say for 99.9% of the time, it’s like the black matter that refuses to be modified.
Almost everyone disagrees with me when I say this; many will also say that I’m so pessimistic. That’s cool. But I find it more peaceful and loving to deal with other people with this perspective and accept each person as they are with no expectations for change. You have two choices: you take it or you leave it. I want to be accepted and loved just the way I am. It’s hard for me to change things about myself even if I really want to (and these are superficial things!) and even if I try really hard. It’s not fair for me to expect this of others when it’s this hard for me. And I don’t want others to expect that of me. That’s too much and that’s not fair for anyone. This is especially true in an intimate relationship setting.
When you decide to be in a relationship with someone, we do so with the best of intentions; with unconditional love, we all hope. (Which, by the way, a redundant term: love is unconditional by definition.) But we all enter into relationships with expectations. There are things we are not sure about the other person yet we’ll say to ourselves, “oh but we love each other and we’ll figure it out,” which is a code for “she or he will change.” We may not be aware of it but we all do it. I’m totally guilty of it and most of the time I didn’t know I was doing that until the s*** hits the fan. This is not fair to anyone and it’s also dumb. Whatever you are getting from this person when you met is what you will always get and most of the time, things get worse because we get familiar and comfortable, which is not actually a bad thing. It’s nice to connect with another human being and you get to the place where you can truly be you, whatever that means.
Sometimes, we find ourselves faced with a decision about the relationships: do I stay or do I go? We are all unsure and feel insecure about which way to go. We feel like so much is at stake and we can stand to lose so much. Am I making the right decision? Am I going to regret this? Well, as I have realized that people don’t change, I also realized that you can make a decision about people in my life at any given moment and it will always stand and it will always be true. Many of us had the experience of getting back with an ex hoping that things will be better this time. You know how that goes most of the time. We all end up realizing that we made the right decision the first time around. We’d like to think that love is lovelier the second time around but I think the song forgot to mention it meant with another person, not with that same cat.
Accepting others with utter totality is what I want to get at. You know what I mean? And for those of you who are at a crossroads of relationship, I want to say that you already know what the best course of action is and your decision will always be good. Even if it’s bad. You have all the information you need and there is no need for you to wonder. There are only two choices: you take it or leave it. Anything other than that will stagnate you and everything else in your life. Life doesn’t happen to you. Your life happens by you making choices. And there is no right or wrong choices. They just determine the nature of your travels and it’s wondrous that we get to choose.