Changes

Twenty years ago I was running around town with a small baby in my arms, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Pope. Now that the Pope is once again in our country I couldn’t even be bothered to turn the TV on to see what’s going on. It’s not just that the Pope has changed, I’ve changed, too. And it’s not an easy change to make.
Thinking about this made me wonder how we deal with the changes we make in our lives and why it is sometimes hard to dramatically alter our beliefs or our way of life.
The problem is once you decide something needs changing that means that the way you used to be/think was… wrong, which is a fact many have trouble accepting about themselves. They’re not that perfect, after all.
More important than the way we see ourselves is (unfortunately) the way we think others see us. A lot of people are so insecure they constantly need the others to tell them how great they are.
Just imagine the shame of anybody else knowing you were wrong! Better stick with your old ways rather than letting everyone know there was an error in your judgment.

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The easiest example comes, of course, from personal relationships. Say one day you realize the guy you’ve been married to for five years is not someone you see yourself spending your whole life with. Let’s not even blame the poor bastard, maybe your interests are different now, you’d like out, but than you’d have to admit he wasn’t the right one after all. Your friends will know, including those who warned you before the wedding you were making a mistake. We’ll ignore what the poor sod has to say, but can you face everyone know you were wrong and you ‘failed’?
I have a friend who once told me she couldn’t possibly back out of a relationship that was making her unhappy, because… she’d already said she loved him and what will people say now? Better pretend things are still OK, no?
I have relatives who went to the US in search of the American dream. When they realized there is no such dream and they were better off here, they did not come back and one of the reasons was, I suspect, they’d have to admit their initial assessment was wrong and, of course, they ‘failed’.
We all struggle to project a certain image of ourselves and we're accepted as that - what if you dramatically alter your life, will you still be accepted? And liked?

In Romanian, we have a saying that translates like ‘only an ox never changes its mind’ and for good reason. Change is a natural consequence of a growing up process. Things you discover along the way, experiences that shape you, it’s only natural to reconsider your point of view. Imagine living your whole life with the same haircut you had when you were twenty and the same type of clothes. You could, but it’s unnatural.