Do you believe in people changing?

[Sethster]

And by changing, I mean.. TRULY changing. 

 

Do you believe that the jock who used to bully and beat up "nerds" in high school, grew out of it and became a kind-hearted, respectful man? A slutty party-goer who's life purpose was to score as many penises as she possibly could, evolving into a classy lady and the mother of four? Someone who'd kill a cat for the fun of it, devoting his life to an animal shelter in just a few years? 

 

Do you actually believe in people changing from the core and becoming the exact opposite of what they previously were? Or do the majority just forcibly suppresses that part of them to seek redemption out of guilt and shame of their past activities? 

 

Don't limit yourself to my questions, I only gave a few poor examples - stick to the title of this topic and give us your most honest opinion and experiences! 

[27X]

Your view is entirely relative; people change every day, they or others simply fail to notice. As for the topical context as in can a person that _____ now do ______ cause they learnt themselves up real good, of course they can, unless they're literally mentally disabled.*

 

>Almost<* anyone has the capacity to learn or grow or change their outlook. What matters is context and manifestation, and after that application. Change requires more than simply recognizing issues and changing their formats and consequences.

 

*Unless they have full blown >clinical< sociopathy, much like diabetes a shit ton of people have and don't know it. A sociopath might see the advantage in changing their routine and behaviors, but the two sides of that coin are the change was simply to gain comfort or leverage or advantage, or simply to avoid having to deal with things considered annoying or negative. You can't reach or engender empathy if you physically never had it to begin with; to cite your cat example.

 

Further caveat is are you sad and contrite cause you did harm, or are you said and contrite because you got caught.  Most repeat felons aren't down because they got theirs at someone else's expense, they're in turned out mode because they failed to pull it off.

 

 

[Guest]

People change. But not dramatically.

Small edges are softened over time. Some attitudes will go away and be replaced by news ones. Also out taste changes in years.

"Truly" means little. Can a people just become a completely different person? No. That is impossible.

 

Small changes are welcome and improve the human beings. Big changes never happens from a day to another.

 

But the small changes can be incremental, and have a person to be really different in 30 or 40 years.

It is rare. Happens almost never. But it is not impossible.

[SexDwarf2250]

Yes, what CPU said.

 

I will add to that, however, by adding that people are complex. People may choose to nurture a different side of them and, likely over time, appear to be quite different. In truth, though, that part of them was there all along, perhaps hidden, or repressed.

 

This begs the question of what people truly are, and how much we can perceive. Think, for instance of Hitler, and how little in history would have been needed to turn him into an artist... who might he have become then? Certainly a very different sort of person, in most ways that matter - to the world - except perhaps at the core...

[khumak]

I think people can smooth the rough edges a bit but not change their core personality.  People can completely change their ideology though, I know I have.  Was brought up as a religious Republican.  To my parent's annoyance I'm now an agnostic Liberal with some Libertarian cross over.  But core personality?  Nope always been an introvert, always will be no matter how inconvenient it might be.

[kboom]

Yes they do. I witnessed a guy whom usually hung out with local gang stealing and bullying other kids. Guess what he is now a respectful father of a child and have a stable job. I couldn't believe myself on the last time i saw him. May be having a child change his attitude.

[Evaloves4]

People do change. I'm living example. But, I'm convinced that the change is based on Einstein's theory of cause and effect. Change doesn't come by itself; out of nowhere. It has to be forced or stimulated or caused by external factor; whatever and whoever it might be.

[goaway]

Short answer yes, but only over long periods of time or through considerable effort.  It is far more likely that people say, think, or even (especially) believe they have changed, when they actually haven't.

 

Long answer - the brain is built upon foundations of clustered neurons that recognize and respond to patterns of stimuli.  Every time a person is exposed to these stimuli (places, people, sensory details, etc.) they will have a similar emotional, mental, or behavioral response that is practically automatic.  These clusters are learned and built over many exposures and deeply ingrained in how someone relates to the world.  This doesn't necessarily extend as far as overt decision making, but a person's emotional state, body language, and situational evaluation is strongly influenced by learned responses.  Someone who has learned to be a jerk is not going to wake up one day and suddenly not be a jerk anymore.  They have to un-learn jerkiness and re-learn non-jerkiness.

 

Basically, it takes an active, conscious effort, over many repeated trials to re-wire the automatic response parts of the brain, and this requires constant effort from the conscious parts of the brain deliberately overriding behavior driven by the automatic parts.  Easiest example to illustrate this is with bad personal habits like biting nails.  Every time a person has a thought, emotion or is in a situation where they would reflexively engage in this behavior, they must deliberately suppress this behavior.  Neuronal connections between ideas and emotions have to be regularly stimulated or they eventually lose connectivity.  If you keep yourself from doing it long enough, eventually the automatic response will no longer be strong enough to trigger the behavior, and it won't take effort anymore. 

 

That's something simple though, it gets way more complicated when you try to override something that isn't as straightforward as "don't do that," for example: be nicer to people, or be more assertive, or something that takes mental effort to determine what exactly the correct behavior SHOULD be.

 

ie what does "be nice" look like? how do I "be more assertive?"  is it what you say, or what you don't say? how you say it?

 

You have to actually think about it!

 

This is a problem because the automatic response is very clear and obvious, thus fast, and the deliberate response requires mental energy to calculate, thus slow.  It is much easier to do what you are used to (making obscene gestures to someone who cuts you off in traffic) because you already know how to do that.  Very often the result is that the automatic response (flipping someone off) happens so fast that you don't have time to suppress it.  

 

Now, this doesn't take into account the fact that the brain is also constantly changing in response to a myriad of internal factors like hormone shifts and external factors like accumulated experiential learning.   A great deal of what drives jerk behavior in teenagers is a direct response to social situations or pressures that no longer exist as an adult.    Essentially, very few people are the same after ten or twenty years, even if they've had the same job in the same town with the same routine for that entire time.

 

So with all that said, It is entirely possible.  The brain, and by extension personality, is by no means a fixed construct.  But it will never happen unless someone deliberately, actively, and persistently tries to make it happen.   The only way for someone to genuinely change is for them to want to change, and for them to fail at it (nothing makes you learn faster) over and over until they actually do.  Any change that is big enough will require more time and more failures than most people can emotionally handle before they actually succeed.

 

Probably not the answer you were looking for.  Most people aren't big fans of the Neuroscience explanation which suggests 90% of what you do every day does not involve making decisions.

 

[KoolHndLuke]

I used to be a raging alcoholic and I quit drinking about 10 yrs ago. I still have a drink or two on occasion, Most people's basic personality never really changes from my experience while a few others can do a complete 180. It really depends on circumstances in life for each person. For instance, I had a very different outlook on life after going through some things like joining the Army, working dangerous jobs, getting my little heart broken for the first time- that kind of thing. It's sort of like a comfort zone after awhile that people find for dealing with shit. It works until it doesn't.....and then they change to adapt to new circumstances I guess.

[endgameaddiction]

Yeah, people change. I went from a nice guy putting others before myself to someone who not only puts himself before others, but not so much of a nice guy anymore. Those who aren't in my shoes tend to consider me an asshole. I'm fine with that. People can throw what ever word they want at me and it won't phase me. But I rather be an asshole then have another knife behind my back ever again.

 

I don't take trust lightly anymore. In fact, I'm very good at pushing people away, because it's easier to weed out the worthless people who are fake who are only there because they want something from you.

 

Do I regret who I am now? No. But I did then. When I was still weak. But now I'm very thankful for those very same so called friends who took advantage of me in the past and made me who I am now. And I enjoy when come up to me pretending to be friends only to see their reaction and consider me an asshole because their little ways don't work with me no more. Maybe it's not a great trait about me being a very honest and blunt person now from what I used to be before, but that damage has been done a long time ago, and it's either something you can accept, or you cannot. What ever the case is, I won't change for no one and I have no desire to. I'm perfectly fine the way I am and it's how I survive.

 

But I'm going to end it with this: I want to be clear about something. I'm not playing the victim card. Not anymore. Perhaps I was back when I was still weak and weeping. But not now. Fuck no. Because at the end of the day, the one who was at fault was me to begin with. I should of known better than to put myself last and put others before me. I should have limited my care and been hesitant when it comes to going out of my way for others. I should have known better but I didn't because I was young and naive. That was then, that's not now. I learned the hard way but it's a life hard lesson that will always stick with me through thick and thin.

 

Now excuse me. Because I'm not interested in associating in this community like I once did in the past. This is an excellent topic and I felt compelled to make 1 post.

 

Adios.

[nonusnomeni]

yes

on worst

never on better

[Jazzman]

Doubt that I live in a symbiosis with George Lucas' midi-chlorians, the cellular mitochondria the Force that surrounds us, penetrates us on already mentioned neuronal highways, busy replicating the excl. motherly mtDNA of our ancestral roots, is made of. For otherwise we'd live on the Planet of Women (and not on the Planet of the Apes).

 

Change is a reaction caused by real interaction with the environment. Mere thinking about interaction just leads to hypothetical scenarios about perhaps to be expected or just hoped-for changes in the environment, scenarios that usually ain't put to a field test. On the contrary, personal change is the mental shift away from experienced disadvantages in the desert of the real toward a more advantageous path. It's personal recalibration, sometimes reorganization. Psychopaths (e.g. certain politicians living in an echo chamber) just double down their efforts to be successful with the same old strategy and tactics. They'll never change. More luck next time, Mr Congressman, eh?

[Guest]

People can't change their personality but they can change their behaviour and attitude over time. It all depends on if you need to change or not, and how much motivation you have for it. The problem with bad people is that they rarely have the empathy to understand that they are hurting people, so they need to experience being subjected to their own evil to know how it feels. Some people also gain more insight with age, and then they get the chance to "redeem" themselves.

[Vuulgar]

Perspectives change dramatically with age. Trauma can also produce dramatic changes to perspective. Personalities can most certainly change, the happy go lucky young person can turn into the hermatic, angry old person with the right set of life events. Every aspect of life is constant churning change, appreciate what you have and enjoy because nothing lasts forever but by in the same thought there is the positive that if you endure any hardships they also will eventually pass with effort. 

[GrimReaper]

Yes

Sometimes it seems we forget that people are physical objects and not something made out of magic and rainbows. Brain damage, brain tumors or neurological diseases have been known for altering the personality of those affected by them, to varying degrees of course depending on how severe the case is and what/where exactly the damage occurs. Less life threatening options also exist, and there's been a renewed interest in how certain psychedelics can potentially cure addictions. Medications like antidepressants also work on a physiological level.

 

Experiences and memories affect our ever evolving brain as well but usually on a much smaller scale, though there exists a severe form of that as well which is usually called PTSD. It's also worth mentioning that the brains of children are much more malleable than those of adults and not only metaphorically speaking - children have been known to survive brain damage that would kill any adult instantly.

 

The third aspect of this would be introspection which is usually used and encouraged by psychologists and psychiatrists all over the world. Sometimes all it needs for change is to gain a new perspective on what was learned and experienced.

[gregathit]

Under normal circumstances folks don't change much.  The school yard bully is going to continue to pound folks his whole life all things being equal. 

 

No one likes change after all.  However radical changes based on the changing circumstances, obstacles or the like happen all the time.  A bigger bully comes along and pounds the first one into submission and the first one becomes a normal person.  Or someone the bully picked on just got tired of it and whipped their butt.  Suddenly the bully is a rational normal dude.

 

I could list tons of examples of folks forced to change for myriads of reasons.  It is hard to blame folks for not wanting to change.  Change can be scary.  It is uncertain territory.

 

I'm not touching the whole physiological side of things, as Grim took care of that.  That aspect can be one more forced circumstance or obstacle one may have to confront.

 

 

[old cat]

Very much agree with your comments about change gregathit. Earlier in this thread I made a simplistic statement that the average person the world over wants little more than a daily life that provides for comfort and convenience. Those two factors revolve around things continuing on a norm that meets their expectations as set by the way they have been raised ... their cultural indoctrination if you will of how society works. The homogeneity of their daily interactions govern the expectations of all interactions both "good or bad" for whatever values those words have in their daily lives.

As you point out environmental changes will cause changes in the way some or even all the people will act dependent on the breadth or depth of the changing event. Could be fight between just 2 or 3, bully and bullied defending themselves or someone else, to catastrophic flood/fire affecting the entire community.

To the OP, do peoples change? The only one who will know if an actual change happened is the individual themselves. However, their behavior may be somewhat radically different; irrational anger becoming rational normal helping at the food bank.

The community sees a vast difference, but is the original personality changed? ... and does it really matter as far as others in the community are concerned?

Any change or perceived threat of change to most people's comfort and convenience can, as you point out, be scary and fear often leads to uncertain territory.

 

eeeek, word wall, stopping now, back to the hole, lurking now

[Klauw]

It depends on so many factors, environment, family, childhood, things they have been through, work even new faces can change a person. There are so many factors and those can be different for everyone. 

 

But there is one thing that changed me and also dozen of other people. psychedelics. Psychedelics changed my life drastic. I felt that my life was completely changing when i took psychedelics for the first time. I never expierenced something like that, i never changed so drastic. I had a completely different view on life, it make me more mature, more quieter, it even developed new interested like philosophy which i found boring when i was younger, it even changed my taste for music. 

 

I felt so free, i don't feel myself like a worktool anymore, i care more about other people which i never did to much, i felt myself free.

 

Now i'm taking psychedelics once in a while, just to dream away and go in a journey and learn new things about myself and your surroundings. Many people (i live in the Netherlands where it is legal) changing after taking psychedelics. They just completely changed, even my ex girlfriend completely changed, i  never saw something like that.

 

Ayahousca is known for changing people but it's dangerous because it holds a mirror infront of you as very negative. It shows how bad you are, it brings up your fears, your trauma's and you need to fight it, without turning back. After when it is gone, people changed drastic.

 

Is this something bad or good? I don't know, everyone has a different opinion about it.

 

In short, people can be influenced and change by almost everyting, it just depends on the person. But i never saw many people changing when they used psychedelics.

 

fun fact: Did you know that thunder can also change people? Many people who got struck by thunder, become completely mental.

 

 

 

 

 

[ToJKa]

10 hours ago, Toonen1988 said:

fun fact: Did you know that thunder can also change people? Many people who got struck by thunder, become completely mental.

Yes, brain injuries do that too. There's plenty of known cases in medical history of that. The physical composition of their brains changes, and since "mind" is an emergent process of functioning brains, their mind changes too.

The sad (or perhaps liberating?) truth is, that all we are is that couple of kilograms of fat in our heads.

 

On topic, they can if they want to and work on it. So most people don't.

[Jazzman]

There is no change of the human mind like the one caused by state indoctrination 24/7 from the cradle to the grave.

[Psalam]

"When the pain to stay the same is greater than the pain to change, you'll change." - 12 Step Program Motto (Alcoholics Anonymous used it first)

[Sethster]

Good shit guys. Good, good shit. 

Hearing such a broad range of different mindsets and opinions is refreshing, and I agree with the mass majority here. So here's a ❤️ for getting involved with one of my first off-topics ever created.

 

[Sethster]

53 minutes ago, TheWhite said:

Okay, this jock/nerd thing is such a tired topic. People are not one thing and one thing only. You can be opposites at the same time. Nothing in this universe is stagnant so...

Never stated any of that.

 

I was using a stereotypical example of what's commonly portrayed as someone's "high school experience" in nearly every teenage movie or TV show. Thus the use of quotation marks.

[Jazzman]

To cause a change for this generation and those that come after...

... people need to put down their phones and wake up!

Otherwise the Matrix of the Fourth Industrial Revolution has you...

... via interface by the remote-controlled brain cells, already soon.

 

Anybody out there that doesn't subscribe to a 'tattooed pipboy'?

See? Welcome to the corporate desert of the unreal, chilll'dren!

[Sarathis]

People can change, yes... but they'll always be capable of being who they were before said change. At one point in their past that person behaved the way they did. Whatever their reasons for changing, they once thought it was acceptable to behave the way that they used to and that kind of thing doesn't go away. It's a part of who they are, despite what is essentially learned behavior later in their life. This is true even for people who had a conscious understanding that their behavior was unacceptable by others in society. They decided to act on those "unacceptable" impulses, even if it's on a subconscious level. 

 

This is the reason why I always laugh when people say, "Your past doesn't matter..." Yeah, it kinda does. Very much so. Should one hold a person's past against them, use it to judge them or shun them in some way after they've changed? That's up to the individual but overall no, one shouldn't. You should take a person for who they are when they're in front of you at that moment. That being said, to ignore that person's past and say it doesn't matter is ignorance. The way a person behaved all their life is a part of who they are and a measure of what they're capable of, good and bad. One should always be aware of that if one decides to relate to that person, especially in a love relationship. If you can't accept and be comfortable with the way a loved one behaved in their past and acknowledge that they are capable of behaving the way they did then you're living a lie in a fantasy world. Yes, your past does matter. It's a part of who you are, even if you don't behave that way anymore.