Change: What Happens When It Doesn't Happen?
As you know, I have been thinking a lot about change. But lately my questions and concerns are no longer based on life events but on people.
As a person we change a lot in life, we grow up and have experiences that shape us into the adults that we become. Sometimes the place that you grow up has the biggest effect on you and other times you don't let it shape who you are. I have been friends with so many people who have come from similar beginnings and yet became such different people. This is extremely interesting to me and I think that it has a lot to do with change and us choosing to change ourselves.
I firmly believe that it is impossible to change a person. You can never get someone to do something they do not want to do even if that is what is best for them. I have learned this through the personal experience of someone trying to change me, but nothing ever happened until I realized it for myself. A person has to want it bad enough.
So what happens when you know someone that could do with some change, but you know that they are nowhere near realizing it for themselves? Even if you think that they are near rock bottom. What happens when their habits are so negative that you are unsure of whether it is healthy for you to be associated with them? Is it worth losing a friend over something that doesn't really effect you, but possibly could in the future. How much risk and stress should you put yourself through to stay friends with someone you really care about?
What happens when someone needs a change but doesn't see it? You can see their paths laid out in front of them. One path where they accept change, make themselves better, and became successful in their own way. The other path where they don't accept change, or maybe they try but don't want it bad enough and keep falling deeper into their hole, yo-yoing their way through life. As my dad always tells me, its harder to dig yourself out of a hole then to put the effort in to not dig it in the first place. And some holes can't be dug out of.
You don't know which way the future leads, so you have to make a decision. Do you put your faith and hope on the fact that success will be the outcome and stick with your friend even though it could lead to worse heartbreak? Or do you walk away now and deal with the current heartbreak in order to protect yourself?
We all come from so many different beginnings, you don't know someones story. Even if you ask and you will never come to understand the moments and events that made them who they are today. You are then pushed together in the world and the person that your beginnings made you may not be the same as another. In fact, they could be so drastically different that you're surprised you are so compatible. Or are you? Can roots be deep enough that they will never be able to be entangled in someone else's? Can you be too different from someone else? So different that you may have to change your values and the way you were taught to be in order to fit with them? Is that worth it?
The only future that you can write is your own. You can not write someone else's, you can't even push someone toward a future, doing that will only frustrate them and yourself and it is not your place. So do you write yourself a future with your friend in it? A future that could potentially be filled with more stress and risk then you have ever had to deal with. Or do you write one without them.
I don't think it is fair to push someone to the side simply for the decisions they have made or the place that they have come from. It's their life style, they are the ones living it and the one that has to suffer the consequences. But because they are a part of your life it effects you even if you don't want it to. You care about them so you worry, and you fear and you wish that you could be there to help them through their stresses. Thinking about this has made me think about how much my actions could be effecting someone and I don't even know it.
I guess the best thing to do would be to let it play out, maybe the future needs to write itself in a situation like this. Maybe you just need to through your hands up and let fate take over.
These are the moments when I wish I was a little kid again and only had to worry about what flavor popsicle was going to turn my tongue the best color. Blue, definitely blue.
As a person we change a lot in life, we grow up and have experiences that shape us into the adults that we become. Sometimes the place that you grow up has the biggest effect on you and other times you don't let it shape who you are. I have been friends with so many people who have come from similar beginnings and yet became such different people. This is extremely interesting to me and I think that it has a lot to do with change and us choosing to change ourselves.
I firmly believe that it is impossible to change a person. You can never get someone to do something they do not want to do even if that is what is best for them. I have learned this through the personal experience of someone trying to change me, but nothing ever happened until I realized it for myself. A person has to want it bad enough.
So what happens when you know someone that could do with some change, but you know that they are nowhere near realizing it for themselves? Even if you think that they are near rock bottom. What happens when their habits are so negative that you are unsure of whether it is healthy for you to be associated with them? Is it worth losing a friend over something that doesn't really effect you, but possibly could in the future. How much risk and stress should you put yourself through to stay friends with someone you really care about?
What happens when someone needs a change but doesn't see it? You can see their paths laid out in front of them. One path where they accept change, make themselves better, and became successful in their own way. The other path where they don't accept change, or maybe they try but don't want it bad enough and keep falling deeper into their hole, yo-yoing their way through life. As my dad always tells me, its harder to dig yourself out of a hole then to put the effort in to not dig it in the first place. And some holes can't be dug out of.
You don't know which way the future leads, so you have to make a decision. Do you put your faith and hope on the fact that success will be the outcome and stick with your friend even though it could lead to worse heartbreak? Or do you walk away now and deal with the current heartbreak in order to protect yourself?
We all come from so many different beginnings, you don't know someones story. Even if you ask and you will never come to understand the moments and events that made them who they are today. You are then pushed together in the world and the person that your beginnings made you may not be the same as another. In fact, they could be so drastically different that you're surprised you are so compatible. Or are you? Can roots be deep enough that they will never be able to be entangled in someone else's? Can you be too different from someone else? So different that you may have to change your values and the way you were taught to be in order to fit with them? Is that worth it?
The only future that you can write is your own. You can not write someone else's, you can't even push someone toward a future, doing that will only frustrate them and yourself and it is not your place. So do you write yourself a future with your friend in it? A future that could potentially be filled with more stress and risk then you have ever had to deal with. Or do you write one without them.
I don't think it is fair to push someone to the side simply for the decisions they have made or the place that they have come from. It's their life style, they are the ones living it and the one that has to suffer the consequences. But because they are a part of your life it effects you even if you don't want it to. You care about them so you worry, and you fear and you wish that you could be there to help them through their stresses. Thinking about this has made me think about how much my actions could be effecting someone and I don't even know it.
I guess the best thing to do would be to let it play out, maybe the future needs to write itself in a situation like this. Maybe you just need to through your hands up and let fate take over.
These are the moments when I wish I was a little kid again and only had to worry about what flavor popsicle was going to turn my tongue the best color. Blue, definitely blue.
