do people change?
No. But yes.
Yes people change - because that is fundamental to the beings we are. That is how we grown from a child to a teenager and then to young adult and then to an old grumpy guy. We learn things, we are continuously shaped - by ourselves and by our surroundings.
No, people don’t change in their core. We are a function of who our parents were to a large extend. And a lot of our childhood experiences and beliefs lay a strong foundation to who will be. Over the first twentyish years we sharpen on those ones which favour. We may or may not shed the useless ones. But by this time the deep hidden layers of our persona is shaped.
In the monastery, we used to do an exercise as a part of formation exercise. The batch would sit in a circle. These are in first three years where the batch sizes would be small to average around 20 - these are the people you live 24x7 with. They witness your life by the design itself in such a way most other systems like job or school or even our own homes can offer. This means they are reading you, knowingly or unknowingly. Now after sitting in circle at the year end, every day we giving feedback to one person. Everyone comes with a sheet of paper prepared - with the good and to improves. The person himself also reflects and writes on his own and comes. Now, the individual keeps refining his sheet based on the feedback he is getting from the group.
Once I had a chat with one of our rectors. He told me a very interesting thing - even after becoming priests sometimes there comes a complaint about some of them. Or some feedback about some of them. And when I go back and see that sheet of paper which was written ten or more years back, it is exactly the same thing as the complaint or feedback was. Very few really change.
Now this can put us in a state of disappointment and misery of our helplessness to redeem ourselves. And to which Anthony D Mello told, don’t try to change. Accept. Accept. Accept as it is. Change will happen when due and on its own.
But let’s assume we are being who want to ride on the hope that there can be change and we don’t have to remain as we are today, whom we hate and is disappointed of and believes that is wasting potential every day.
What makes someone change?
A big event: Some moment of life which drives a realisation into the individual deep enough to dismiss the notion which previously existed. This means life is hitting hard. It is touching skin. Very rarely a quote or words can do this. It can be a death of a parent or a dear one - when you suddenly realise that the time on earth is limited and therefore it is better to love and respect than to carry hate. It can be a break up - which suddenly may hit the notion that the way you thought about love was completely wrong. It can be an accident. It can be anything. Big moments of life, even in a split of second, go deep on our minds.
Slow continuous effort: One realises, there is something off. I am not travelling in the right direction. I need to become a better person, I need to love, I want to be kinder… But even when this realisation hits and you want to change, you will struggle to change. You will find yourself going back to the unkind and arrogant version again and again. But you keep on trying. You don’t give up or you don’t let the hope die off. You strive every other day and keep on learning about yourself. This conscious and continuous effort over a long time can move the needle a bit.
Your environment can change you: The system and the environments you are part of can change you. Here, most trainings and stuff, be very careful, do not change your inner core. But then what. Example, a system like monastery can change you because of the timetable and the activities you are continuously exposed and because of the design. But here is the catch - you need to expose your true self to the environment. Just tweaking to behave in the expected ways will not change you. You have to be you within the system, expose yourself, so that the system can correct you. But in most environments and with most individuals this is very difficult. And the required exposing of the trueness never happens. And therefore even big systems can more often than note, fail in really changing you.
This is the summary of my thoughts on this. So when you bet on people, do not fall into the misdirection of betting on them changing.