“I don’t want to change who I am!” An interesting quote that recently got my attention.
Why, yes, I think I shall…
Really? Don’t want to enjoy new experiences? Don’t want to meet some specific person: a celebrity, an artist, a musician, an intellectual notable in your field of interest, and have a potentially life or perspective changing conversation? Don’t want to live a more contented, happier life? You’ve achieved all you can, met all your goals, gone everywhere, seen everything? You have answered all of life’s questions – or at least those that matter to you? You grok all, and have fulfilled your life’s purpose? You are entirely finished with personal growth because you are exactly and precisely in all respects 100% the person you most want to be, fully aware, and ideally empowered in your experience, confident, and self-assured, secure and content?
This was a big step…
Everything we do changes ‘who we are’. So… what does someone who says “I don’t want to change who I am!” really mean by that? What do they mean by ‘who I am’? What immutable qualities of self exist that they are so terrified change will cost them their entire identity?
I am a student of life.
I’m not being mean, snide, dismissive, flippant, smug, or superior – I am puzzled. I have said those words, although it seems now it was some lifetime ago, in another place, in a very different context, and with a very limited understanding of what ‘self’ may be. I even meant it, at the time, in a wholly sincere way, feeling very threatened that I might somehow sacrifice my existence as a being to make even one more change to ‘my self’, however small.
At this point, that seems a very odd position to take, having finished a year of nearly continuous growth and change, and finding myself – from my own perspective – to be, still, entirely me. lol.
This matters more than I understood when I started.
What does ‘Who am I?’ mean, as a question, and when I answer that question with a statement of ‘who I am’, what does that ‘mean’ for me, or convey to others? Are the qualities we associate with “I am…” statements actually definitive of who we are as beings? I am learning that when I define myself, I am also placing limits on my choices, and potentially accepting a much more restrictive experience – filled with things and qualities I may reject because I ‘am not’ those. How do I choose which qualities I have or am, and which I lack, or am not? When I set my jaw and insist on being an unchanging self, immutable, inflexible, and unbreakable, without accountability or responsibility for the qualities I accept as defining me – don’t I also stall any chance at growth, progress, and learning in every area of my experience? How would I reconcile such a thing against the obvious existence of change, itself? Or…do we get to dictate how much we are willing to change, on what axis, to what degree of magnitude, and with regard to what characteristics? Is it that easy? We do have a lot of room to ‘customize’ who we are, through our choices. If we can ‘customize’ who we are (and oh, yes, we can)… doesn’t that take away the option of saying “I don’t want to change who I am!” – unless we are indeed exactly and precisely the person we most want to be, in every respect? And if we are that person, (fulfilled, content, satisfied with our sense of self…) and yet our relationships are confrontational, hurtful, contentious, unsatisfying, joyless, or unhappy in a long-term everyday way… are we saying that the responsibility for growth and change rests solely with our partner(s), and that we have no obligation to examine our own nature, choices, and character? That seems a tad lopsided, and not reciprocal… it also doesn’t sound like something I’d expect to hear from a human being who had achieved all their goals, is precisely the person they most want to be, fulfilled, content, and satisfied with themselves, at all. Are we saying we prefer to exist in problematic, painful, or unsatisfying relationships, because that is preferable to change? Or that if change requires our willful constructive decision-making and action, that we’re just not interested? There is a missing piece here. Like assembling a jigsaw puzzle from which some practical joker removed a handful of unrelated pieces, I find myself frustrated, and unsure that I can ‘complete this picture’ at all easily, but I continue to fuss with it restlessly, needing the satisfaction of solving the puzzle.
There’s even science about change, and self…
I write through the lens and filters of my own experience. I’m a student of life, and have my own baggage, my own biases, my own expectations of life, love and the world. Change is. I don’t realistically see a way around that. Fight it or embrace it – we have little control over the existence of change. If my choices and the changes associated with them are so powerful as to be the difference between happy/unhappy, content/discontent, positive/negative, considerate/inconsiderate, or success/failure, and growth/stagnation – why would I ever make willful choices to be unhappy, discontent, negative, stuck, inconsiderate… or any of a very long list of things that suck in life? If I were suffering something that unpleasant, painful, causes me to suffer, feels bad, or takes my experience in an unpleasant direction – and have a choice to do differently, or have a different experience – why would I not make the choices to enjoy my life, more? It’s a question.
…I’ve come so far…
I’m still more about questions than answers. This is a lot of words, on a quiet day. Today is a good day to be the change I wish to see, in my self. How else?
It can be as simple as this.
Evening Light 
More Strange Days
I’m feeling a bit whipsawed by circumstances in life and love lately. I struggle to maintain balance – thankfully, finding it is less challenging these days. Even my own words and thoughts sometimes tug me this way and that way as if to say ‘how sure are you?’. Like yesterday’s post on Change… I apparently have mixed feelings on some points. My commute home was a conversation with myself [no, not out loud!] that felt a bit like a tennis match…
Pre-occupation looks like bit like this…
…Change can be accepted or rejected, but it just is…
…It’s not okay to insist someone else change; acceptance and compassion are important values!…
…There’s a difference between demanding change ‘or else’, and encouraging someone to grow or consider their values and actions!…
…Is there? What’s it to me? Everyone is free to make their own choices, be their own person, walk their own path…
…We each have an obligation to take care of ourselves, to live our values, and to communicate when our boundaries are violated, or our limits reached…right?…
…It’s not acceptable to dictate values to someone else…
…If a relationship is based on specific stated values, and someone doesn’t actually live those values in their behavior, though, calling them on that… is that okay?…
…Walk away if you don’t like it. Why would it be okay to insist on change?…
…Every relationship I’ve been in as eventually found me facing an explicit demand to change something about myself that seemed an integral part of me, and I really don’t like it. When I capitulate I am resentful, and sometimes insincere, when I push back… oh… I don’t think I actually know what happens then. And I resent the lack of reciprocal willingness to meet needs and grow….
…See? That sucks. So don’t do it…
…Doesn’t it make sense to grow? To become more the being I want most to be?…
…It’s the ‘I statement’. It’s about individual freedom and will. It’s about not attempting to force someone’s heart, or demand that they value what you value, honoring their honest self with your own honest self…
Back and forth I went, as the train moved down the rails closer and closer to home. Closer to calling it a night, getting off my feet, out of the rain, into dry clothes, to enjoy a meal with my family and quiet conversation. I don’t think I found my way to any measure of ‘certainty’ on Change beyond ‘change is‘. It’s enough. I’m happy to have choices to contemplate, values to evaluate, and internal dialogue with good content, relevant to my own experience.
Another day begins. Life has prepared the curriculum. Pencils ready? And… begin.
To reach my destination, I nearly always have to start where I am.
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