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I don't think they can change fundamentally. People's qualities get sharpened and refined as they age, and their areas of focus shift. But the core, foundational qualities that make us who we are -- I think they develop quite early in life and aren't amenable to change after that.
I agree completely. Very , very, very few people in my experience can truly change, not fundamentally anyway.
The subject of "redemption" for example is one which fascinates me because human beings' hard-wiring starts at a very early age and is very difficult to alter. We are very much the product of our environment ( as well as some genetic input ) at the time our personalities were formed ( very early age).
I have had a few bad experiences with people of being betrayed when I genuinely believed someone had always been a good and decent human being and wondered how they could change so much.
Then I realised that they had always been twisted and duplicitous but had simply either been great actors or even simply never been given the opportunity/reason to show their true colours. The bad seed was always there but either invisible or waiting to sprout...
Humans can change but it is no easy feat , thus immensely rare. We can turn our lives around but changing personalities is a lot more challenging I think.
I think a lot of that is the lifestyle our society heavily pressures us all to live. Go to work, marry, have kids by 30. Now sign on for an assload of expenses that have to be paid monthly 'til you're 50-60years old. ten to twenty years later you die. No time for heavy psychological or spiritual growth and change.
The older I get, the more I...care less about money, education, power, status, physical appearance, and all the superfluous things that so many of us tend to dwell upon.
And the more I prize kindness, a caring attitude, happiness, decency, vivaciousness, intelligence, integrity, sincerity.
that says it all
Truth with a capital T
thanks prof
The older I get, the more I realize there is no one I need to impress and not to sweat the small stuff.
I appreciate life so much more and take a whole lot more time to stop and smell the roses, to watch the sun rise or sun set, to look at the beautiful clouds or to watch the squirrels play. I am happy with WHO I am and where I am in life, to heck with what anyone else thinks of my lifestyle or how I look. No one has ever taken as good a care of "Me" as "ME" do! (That's been my motto for over 20 years)
I agree with the OP, all except for the physical part. I have had a difficult time adjusting to the physical aging process ... I always said I was never vain - and I never was, because I took my looks for granted - now that my looks are fading,I find myself putting undue value on them. It is an adjustment process - I will eventually settle into it.
But certainly, the other stuff, about money, power and status ... I agree with, 100%.
I am one who has truly changed. And I've also learned to embrace poverty in the process.
Now I keep asking myself why I waited so long.
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