We Don’t Change We Mature
It occurred to me the other day I haven’t changed. I was going through a bit of a crisis, another mid-life kind of thing. That’s when it hit me: I’m the same. In 20 years of adulthood I’m still the same person. I don’t mean superficially either, I mean almost literally. I do the same things, I eat the same things, I complain about the same things, I misspell the same words (occasion and occurred get to me), I write the same, I have the same dreams and the same hope of something around the corner.
It’s all the same. I have a family and I crave alone time, when I get alone time I do the same things I did when I was single: watch TV, eat junk food, play video games. I might want to learn a craft, create something, travel, explore, hang out with friends, experiment in the kitchen, or try something new, but I don’t and I haven’t.
Do we really change? All of my core habits are the same thing in core-form, but some of them have matured. This means, instead of eating pizza, ice cream, and candy on Friday night, I might have a few slices and share a bag of candy and have a smaller portion of ice cream (still have the same favorite as 20 years ago, chocolate chip cookie dough, except I can’t buy it because I will eat all of it). Instead of watching action movies I’ll watch something more sophisticated or adult. Video games has only changed in terms of time spent playing, which has decreased. Reading is mostly the same, I look for the same books, good literature or esoteric non-fiction.
I start and stop the same things, but I might last longer now when I start. For instance, I’ll get into drawing for a bit, learn some new technique and apply it for a few days then stop drawing for months or years. The only thing that has changed has been the time in between drawings. My skill level remains the same.
Or with chess. I’ll move from bullet chess to blitz and now I’m considering a big move into rapid. Maybe I’ll even stick with learning an opening. I’ve actually decreased hundreds of rating points. So I guess that’s change, one could get worse.
My grammar mistakes are the same and I refuse to learn. Actually, I recently discovered I’m a visual-spatial learner, or at least it’s my primary learning strenth and this might be why I’m stagnant. It’s hard to learn and improve if you insist on doing it the way that is hard for you. What was my previous learning style? To grind away and hope I understand things instantly, because, heh, I’m not going to bother memorizing or reviewing.
While I’ve matured in a lot of aspects of my life, again, it’s the core elements and values that are unchanged. I see this in others, too. My wife is basically the same person she was when I met her with a few bad, self-destructive habits lessened (same with myself and others, our self-destructiveness has largely gone away). My brothers are unchanged. One sticks with whatever job he has, reads, spends time doing activities with his kids, does his little around the house hobbies and that’s it. The other sticks with his job, uses his computer, eats at restaurants and goes out. The acquaintances and friends I’ve known are the same people from the first time I met them. It’s why I know if I don’t talk to them for ages and then suddenly see them again nothing will feel different. Same goes for my high school and college friends.
Most of us also look the same. Maybe gained a few pounds, but of everyone I know we’ve all stayed the same weight and body composition. Clearly, not everyone does this, but I think it’s the norm.
The only people I know who’ve changed are people who I knew as kids and now they are adults. They’re still similar, but they’ve changed in that all of their primary interests and hobbies are no longer kid-like. Someone I met as an adult and they are still an adult (one hopes) is the same. I bet I met you and figured you out I could predict who you’d be twenty years from now. The same person. With the same habits, the same tastes, same routines, habits, loves, hates. Tiny minor details will be changed.
Maybe it’s a good thing, I can’t tell you. I can tell you it’s frustrating when you realize how difficult it is to change. That’s what self-improvement is all about, changing who you are to become who you want to be, but who you want to be is based off of the ideas of who you are, and how can who you are possibly know best about who they want to be?
“I want to be in better shape!” Okay, okay, why don’t you try to not stuff your face with pizza this time. Do that one thing.
“I want to be a writer!” That’s good! Great! Why don’t you stick to publishing Medium for longer than a month, okay?
“I want to be wealthy!” Super. Real super, big guy. How about applying yourself at your job first, okay?
Okay?
Oookay?
All right, then, be that way, keep your secrets.
Change is hard, especially when you recognize little of it has happened. It’s easy to think change is the default when you’re going to school and taking classes. Your classes change, yes, but your habits, your study methods, your sense of accomplishment, remain unchanged.
If I know twenty years from now I’ll be dealing with the same problems of selfhood, what can I do to change the outcome? I hope to have an answer for you before then.