Permission to Change

If there is one constant in life, it is change. Yet, as humans we love predictability. 

We pursue jobs that offer a sense of security, are reluctant to move to new places and uproot our lives, and even make routines around the food we eat at restaurants and at home. 

Change is inevitable yet we find ways to fight it  and proceed to be shocked when it happens. 

Society is constantly evolving. Your views are constantly evolving and changing, even your sense of self changes on a daily basis without your realizing. 

When I reflect on younger versions of myself it takes so much restraint not to turn myself into a facepalm meme. 

How could I have been so ignorant, so reckless, so careless? 

The only reason I can reflect and smack my hand to my forehead is because I am a different person now than I was then. I have changed. 

Yet, most of this change wasn’t intentional. I didn’t sit there and commit to myself that I was going to become more open-minded and empathetic, fatter and weaker, less ego-centric yet willing to prioritize myself. It just happened through my life experiences. 

This change happened despite my lack of intentionality. 

When we look at the world, the advent of social media has drastically shifted the lifestyles of people. While it seems that children are maturing at faster rates than ever before, adults seem to be staying in touch with their youth for longer than they have previously. We simultaneously have teenagers that dress like they are in their twenties and 40 year olds whose vocabulary barely lags behind their teenage counterparts. 

What rizzlers, right? I definitely used that right. 

This change wasn’t intentional. The advent of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Vine, TikTok or any other social platform didn’t have the intention of this outcome but society changed without us realizing it. 

This constant change can make it easy for people to reflect and begin to live in the past. Believing that things were better or simpler at previous moments within their lives or reflecting on things that they wish wouldn’t have changed. 

I am guilty of this too. 

When I was in high school, I played sports, I had a job that I would occasionally work 20 hour weekends for (I worked almost every weekend unless I had games that conflicted with my work schedule), and I had homework that constantly needed to be done yet I somehow managed to do a ton of social activities. This persisted into college too. 

I reflect on the amount of time that I seemingly had during those days and think about all that I could have accomplished then if I would have had the experience that I do now. 

But at the same time, I don’t care for some of the behaviors that I have changed over time. 

If I expand this out further - we have people in our lives that have stayed consistent. You know exactly what to expect from the behavior even with the constant changes that they have experienced in their lives. 

Then, there are the anomalies that have drastically shifted their behaviors. Maybe the last time we saw them, they were on the road to doing nothing with their life, they were close-minded and blamed everyone else for the problems that they had. 

At one point, they decided enough was enough and completely shifted who they are. You meet them after they undergo this drastic change and they are suddenly polished, they take accountability for their actions, they actually have a direction in their life that you are pursuing. 

But this conflicts with the person that you know them to be. So you try to push them back in the confines of the box with which you hold the past version of themselves because you just can’t seem to accept that they have changed. 

For some reason, these drastic changes are easier to accept for those that we aren’t super close to but if this happened to your children, your spouse, your parents, or your siblings, you may really fight the changes that they have made. 

This internal conflict reflects more on your lack of effort to change who you are than it reflects poorly on the changes that they have made in their life.

Depending on your circumstance, this may have happened to you. 

This causes tension where people either feel obligated to revert to their past self or eventually cut you off as they like who they have become and no longer resonate with the person you are. 

While we can’t always pinpoint the changes that have happened with the people in our lives, or in society at large while the changes are happening - there are typically points where we can reflect and go, “woah. Things are different now.” 

As time passes, you will be able to reflect and do the same thing when reflecting on that point in time. 

And this process can repeat for eternity as everything is constantly changing. 

So why do we try to force people to be the same person that we have known them to be from a small portion of their lives. 

Would you want to be perpetually defined by decisions that you made in middle school? What about high school? College? 

I can tell you I have no desire to regress to those past versions of myself.

So why do we force this upon others? 

Our favorite comedians, social media stars, musicians, friends, family, acquaintances… It’s okay for them to change and evolve the person that they are. We don’t have to resonate with the new version of them to support them becoming the person that they want to be. 

We were able to enjoy the version that resonated with us and should be grateful for that. 

While it can be upsetting to experience these changes, it’s no reason to stifle others by shoving them back into a box of memories that best suit us and our needs.  

Have you ever experienced this? The sensation of someone trying to force you to be a past version of yourself that you no longer resonate with? How did this make you feel? How did you feel towards that person? 

It’s likely that you have seen or experienced this. You may have been on the stifling side or the side that was stifled. While you can’t change what has happened, you can use these experiences to guide your future decision making.

Ultimately, we are constantly changing. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. This isn’t limited to people. Everything is in a constant state of change. While that sounds ironic, it’s our reality. 

By embracing it, you open your reality to infinite opportunities  - and perhaps, you'll inspire someone else to do the same.