I almost died when I was 26. I spent the whole year prior in a state of dying. It was a profound experience and it changed me in a lot of ways. It helped me see that I was not a great person. I was not super empathetic. I was selfish and fearful. I was the asshole.

I spent a lot of time working on how I approached the world and people, after that. Meeting my spouse was important, too, because early in our relationship I realized I had to unlearn a lot of my asshole behavior or he was going to leave me (he's the nicest person I've ever met!)

I have seen people change. I know I did, over years, with hard work. But psychologists will tell you what changes people is going through a profound emotional experience. Like dying. Like the death of a loved one. Like, maybe, losing a beloved career.

Profound events force us to change, to re-evaluate. Without consequences, why change? As long as folks can skate along doing the same thing, and lose nothing, they will continue to operate the same way they always have. People are inherently lazy.

Of course all of us CAN change. We CAN do the work. It's just that most people simply won't until or unless they go through that profound emotional experience. Until then, their internal narrative will always be "bitches got me down!" or "no one understands my sense of humor!'

And they will absolutely die believing that. I was stuck in a narrative of "everyone is selfish and out for themselves so you better get yours and protect yourself." That was.. not a nice way to live. And not actually true. But I had to unlearn that whole narrative. It was hard.

I write a lot about power and abuse, and complex, needling relationships, and it's because I've been in not-healthy relationships. I've been the asshole and I've been the one wronged, too, and I've been in complex ones where no one comes out looking great. It takes work to end.

So sure, I believe folks can change. I just know how extraordinarily difficult and rare it is, and how much work it takes, and how easy it is to say "yes I'll do better" and just fall right back into old patterns. Something has to wake you up. Something else must change first.