Do you believe in people changing?

[ToJKa]

On 8/12/2018 at 2:43 PM, Jazzman said:

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.

Hey, some of us deliberately chose the blue pill.

 

Not that i need a "blue pill", mind you ?

[SexDwarf2250]

"Technology is bad, mmkay?"

 

Really (and in light of the grain of truth in that statement)... the biggest threat is globalism. For the same reason that sensible governments across the world break up monopolies. Just as a diverse society of companies in a market ensure a healthier system, so too a world government would prove more stagnant and far worse in corruption than leagues of nations.

 

But we might be straying off topic here.

[shencereys]

On 8/9/2018 at 6:26 PM, Sethster said:

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! 

 

In short, yes, but they can and will change back if they wind up in the same place.  A person can change permanently if their lives and circumstances stay different from the original state you're comparing them to.

 

Please pardon me while i wax philosophical like some pretentious fart sniffer.

 

People experience new circumstances and this changes them.  This is obvious to everyone.  What's not obvious all the time is that the changes a person undergoes are, in my belief, a product of a process more than some manifestation of will or grit or intention. 

 

A plant can grow straight up or it can grow around an obstacle - it's all up to the circumstances the plant finds itself in.  It's basic nature isn't gonna change - a plant is a light-seeking creature.  So you can find a plant that's all coiled round a drain pipe, or a tree that grew out sideways, etc.  It only grew in that fashion because it needed to.  It was the easiest way to survive.  

 

People gradually grow and change in the same way.  Take a rich, snobby kid, take away his money, put him in the ghetto, - at first and for a while he'll still just a rich snob.  After enough time and travails he'll seem totally different.  But, put him back in a suit and make him CEO of a fortune 500 company and - given enough time - he might yet still loot the pensions of all his poor employees while he retires to a small island sipping margaritas.  Whether or not he does, it's the circumstances he had to grow around, and HOW he grew around them is dependent on the basic nature of his personality.   I believe, unfortunately, we have very little control over the kind of person we eventually become.

 

Personalities are pretty well set at birth.  While you can't know if someone's gonna be a doctor or a janitor, or wind up going to prison or being president - or even grow up smart or dumb as a post (those things aren't really set yet).  But whether or not the person is going to be irritable, happy-go-lucky, curious, overly conservative, outgoing, shy, etc.  Those things are hard-coded into you.   It's very well-established that by 3 or 4 our fundamental personality traits are practically set in stone and vary very little over our entire lifetime.  

 

So, your basic nature isn't something you can control.  And it's your basic nature that informs you which circumstances you need to overcome, and which ones you can let be.  It doesn't tell you HOW to overcome them.. just that "this is acceptable" and "this is not acceptable".   "I like this."  "I don't like that."  So you can see how your nature -something you cannot control- can make you start to grow in certain ways and not in others.

 

So put us back in an old place with old friends and same old circumstances and guess what.  We'll succeed at long term change - back to just what we used to be.  We'll grow toward the light, wherever you put us.  

[Di3sIrae]

I saw very interesting opinions here about it. I can agree to all.

I think that yes, people can change. Entirely, and superficial.

Using the example, i believe that a bully in the school can turn to a good guy and father later. But what made him change? Society. Can he beat someone else after he is not a child anymore? No.
So, if, all of a sudden, the world we know ended (fallout, ahem), would these now good fathers and mothers still be good persons? Would they go and help others? Or would they gang up and become "raiders"?

 

I guess that the majority of them would just do this. Leave all of that morals behind and do what their nature tells them to be.

 

So yes, like already said by others, a person can change drastically, and even say that the past is long behind. It is not easy to change, at the same time that it is. As you grow up and responsibility comes, it is natural to change. Unless you really have a problem with society and don't want to enter in the routine. But your inner self is always there, who you are.

The same way, a person that fully integrates itself into a new life can even think of going back to it's "bad" state, but then thinking that it will not be worthy it. And so you have someone who desired to change, and is not going back. Can we say that a person that does this trully changed?

 

Anyway, i do believe that traumas of any kind can change people from night to day. Like mentioned, being hurt both physically and mentally can change someone. For ever.
You may remember what you were, but you don't want to go back to it. It can be fear of passing through the same situation again, or anything else.

The guy who killed cats for fun may one day pass through something that makes he hate what he was and did before, thus changing into a cat lover and veterinarian. And never, given the opportunity, would he hurt animals anymore.

 

I do believe that people can TRULY change over time. Be with psychedelics, be with traumas, or just plain strong will. As i also do believe that most people that "changed", never "changed" at all. We may never know.

[Kirzol]

I can only speak for myself.  You see, at 14 I was raped and nearly killed. I began to hate men. I mean real hate and absolutely no trust. This spread from just men to my brothers.

 

 My mother caught me talking to the girls I ran with at the time. She heard me talking about cutting off my oldest brother's balls and making a necklace out of them. I had caught him perving on me while I was in the shower.

 

 My Mother put me in the car and on the way home scolded me for talking that way. "Young ladies never speak such filth" I told her about my brother peeking on me. She knew I had issues due to the rape. She explained that he was just looking. She also put an absolute stop to my brothers peeking in on me and going in my room for any reason.

 

 I was angry, hurt and my Mother would not back off. She talked to me. She explained that one bad man is never all of them and that the good ones always hunt the bad one down. She stuck with me and refused to let me go the direction I was headed in. This went on for over a year. But in this year she taught me so much about life. About how hate does nothing but destroy. About trust, about being a mother and wife. All the advice she gave me I use now.

 

 When I was entering my Sr. year of high school my mother died from cancer. It hit me that I was the only woman in our home. My father became an abusive drunk. I had to fight for custody of my brothers. Gary and I married when I was 17 so I could get custody (still married btw) I put my  brothers through school including paying for collage. I put myself through school. My Husband is in the navy so I danced to make the money to do all of this. My brothers think I'm my mom reborn and I love that. She never gave up on me and I just hope to be the mother she was.

 

 People can change. It's just very painful to do it sometimes.

[AWP3RATOR]

I believe that people are constantly changing and evolving.  Their personalities, likes, dislikes, how they feel about the world they live in, etc. - all of it is constantly being shaped and reshaped by time and experience in their environment.

 

The presupposition in the question "do people change?" and the subsequent examples is that people would be changing for the better which is, at it's root, an assumption that the former examples were "bad" and the latter were "good".  

 

So do people change for the better?  That really depends on our point of view and understanding of what better really is.  People change constantly, I believe that as fact - if they change to conform to something closer to our ideals of "good" then yes, people can "change", from our point of view.

 

In my personal journey, I recognized the direction I was going, didn't like that direction, and actively worked to alter myself and the perception others had of me.  In doing so, some would say that I "changed for the better" (reality was closer to: straightened my life out) whereas others might say I "changed for the worse" as they didn't like the choices I made.

 

Example:  Party culture.  In my youth, I partied pretty hard.  What you might imagine:  out late nights, drinking, committing things while intoxicated and not following though later, shirking responsibilities so that I could party more, etc.  and so on.  In moving away from this behavior and partying less/being "more responsible" in taking care of my responsibilities, I lost friends who were unwilling to accept my new more tame lifestyle choices but I gained new ones in the process who were willing to accept.

 

I suppose this all really comes down to a question of relativity to the person being examined who "should" change vs ourselves and what we think of them.

 

At the end of that mental exercise for me though, generally comes acceptance in the person - they can "change" to confirm to what I might is good for them, but they have to be willing/wanting to do it.  I need to accept them for who they are and whatever place they may hold in my life (or leave them behind). 

 

Deep thoughts in this thread!

[Guest]

yes because I've done it, used to be racist a bully,hated homosexuals, but after being exposed to drugs and mingling with different culture I changed,I realized I was generalizing and had no right to tell people how to live their lives, of course some of those old views still linger,they never truly go

 

What i found most Interesting was using my old bullying habits ( I could actually fight,most bullies can't) and getting into fights to protect the very people i once hated who were being harassed

 

But I still find I'll actually go out of my way to prove to myself I'm not a racist.I made gay/colored friends (except for religion,my views on that will never change ) so I'm still a bigot in that regard that hasn't changed in 40 years and never will

[Kamen Rider Kuuga]

People don't change, they just get better at lying to you. Or you get better at spotting the bullshit.