Do we really change?
As I woke up today, I couldn’t help but wonder: do people really change, or do we just discover and improve the hidden parts of ourselves that have been there since we were kids? Is personal growth more about showing a different side for appearances, rather than a deep transformation?
To explore this, first, I broke down two key terms: change and transformation.
Change is usually a response to something and happens gradually, while transformation is a deliberate and significant shift.
In business, both these terms work fine, but when it comes to people, I’m not so sure about deep transformations. Now, let’s think about individuals as part of nature, like trees. Our core values and personality are like the roots, and as we go through life, we observe different personalities, relationships of us and others in a variety of environments. We build and refine our values and character (if we WANT), just like branches growing “seasonally” from the roots. So, mostly, this is how this change happens. But this observer, evaluator person is inside of us, right? And I call it a “sparkle.”
Habits play a big role here. We absorb habits into our character; our brain gets used to that habit and finally, we are “That person” — we dream of, should be. But do we really wake up one day and feel like a completely different person? I doubt it. It’s more like upgrading from version 1.0 to 1.1 — keeping our roots but adding some new features. I hope these habits absorb more on our deep transformations, which actually make who we are rather than just showing a different side for appearances.
Let’s move on with the “tree” idea. Think of these “seasons” of trees as turning new pages in our lives. And now the question is: How do we open a new page after discovering our “sparkle”? The answer is simple: leave your comfort zone. Want to be the version 1.1 of yourself? Step out of version 1.0 and try it out. It’s hard at first; you might lack confidence because you don’t know the response of people to that version 1.1. You are in a test stage of yourself. You find little “bugs” and fix them. Eventually, you can confidently present your updated self to yourself and the community.
In the end, I believe in change, especially for those with that inner “spark” pushing them to observe and encourage to implement a new version of themselves. However, I’m not sold on the idea of total transformation because we don’t start from scratch, reinvent ourselves — we build on our existing selves.
Let’s stick to our inner spark and pick up beneficial features for our new update :)
