The Point

When do you get to the point when you stop expecting someone to change?

Never. We change every day, sometimes a few times a day. We are hungry. We eat. We are tired. We nap. Then we are no longer tired or hungry. A fundamental change but if you have ever cared for a toddler who is tired and hungry, then you understand the way that these fundamental needs alter our rational thinking, our tenacity, our patience, our outlook, our hope.

We change in more significant ways; not in the moment but incrementally, by degrees, over a month, a year, a decade. So if you met me a decade ago, I am different now. You are different also.

Many books have been published that tell us that our moral and ethical foundation is set by the time we are six years old. I don’t dispute that the foundation is established. But a foundation is something upon which much more is constructed.

I’ve made some proclamations in my life; proclamations that have some validity but may have been limited by experience and understanding of my years. I am older now. I see things differently than I did twenty or more years ago. I have changed. Even in the last decade, the last few years, the last two months, the last two weeks.

If we stop expecting people to change, evolution ceases. Surely we are evolving – constantly, momentarily.

So I expect you to change. I expect to change. I expect change – unpredictable and surprising but not really frightening, not even in the frightening moments. Sometimes the frightening moments are the moments we discover our inner hero, leader, power.