For Christmas, my mother bought me a day-by-day calendar (the kind where you rip off the page each day) since I've always wanted one. The particular one I have is one where each day, there is a quote or little nugget of advice.Today's piece of advice is the topic of this blog. Here's what it says:
"Whenever we are attached to having something a certain way, better than it already is, we are engaged in a losing battle."
I think that the same thing goes for trying to change a person. When you try to change someone to be a certain way, or the way you think or want them to be, you are, in fact, engaging in a losing battle. A person will not change unless they really want to. At least, that's what it's like in my experience.
The first year of high school (can't believe that was almost 10 years ago!), I met this guy, T. T and I became really good friends, and spend tons of time together. He was a real lady's man, and had many friends who were girls. As you can imagine, with all the time we spent together, I had developed quite a crush on this guy. I thought he was perfect in every way, and no one could tell me differently. I decided to ignore the fact that he was always around girls and flirting.
Throughout high school, we went our seperate ways. The last year of high school, we found ourselves in many of the same classes and reconnected. My crush was back. We had a very enjoyable senoir year getting to know each other again. He hadn't changed, always flirting with girls and not making a commitment to anyone.
Then came college. (This was the first time I went to college, before I dropped out. I went back, but that's a story for another day). We had a class together, so we hung out a lot. After a while, we decided to go out for my birthday. So he took me to a restaurant and we had dinner. After my birthday, we did this a few times. I was starting to notice his flirting again, but he seemed to want to hang out with me a lot more than any other girl.
To make a long story short, he made it seem like he wanted to make a commitment. I spent 7 years trying to get him to make a commitment to me, and I just knew that now would be my chance. So we had the talk, and he still wouldn't commit. Now, we're not even friends anymore.
The point of this story is that, I had spent all this time trying to get him to change and be a better version of himself. He never wanted to change, and a part of me knew that he wouldn't. Still, I was engaging myself in that losing battle.
If there's anything I've learned so far in my program at school (special care counselling), it's that you can't change or help a person who is not willing to do so. Both parties need to be willing to make a change in order for the change to work.
Maybe T and I weren't meant to be, maybe we were too young or too blind to make that commitment to change. Whatever the reason, I'm grateful for that experience because it helped shape me into the person I am today.
2 comments:
Ugh. Tough lesson to learn. But at least you learned it early! There are people who much later in life are stuck in relationships where they hope to change someone.
Imagine waking up when you're 60 and realizing your whole life has gone by waiting for that person? Yikes.
That's very true. You can't just try to change someone. I realized that with my ex a bit. He would never be the person who I wanted him to be (like I wanted him to give compliments, spend time with me, etc.). The relationship was kind of messed up. Instead of wanting to change him, I should have tried finding someone who was what I wanted instead (which I eventually found). It sounds to me like you didn't spend your whole life chasing T which is good. That being said, love can be blind. You were crazy about him but he would never be who you wanted him to be. There is someone else out there who is what you want :)
Post a Comment