Do people truly ever change?

Waxing philosophical here, are people ever really what you think they are in the first place?

I’ll be watching this thread because I’ve been pondering the same thing for the past few days…

I can only speak for myself, but I believe I changed radically. I’ve been a fearful, lying alcoholic, and now I am a forthright, honest sober man. I used to loath my sexuality, and now I revel in it. I have faced the specter of mental illness, and now I no longer let it define me. It’s simply a part of who I am.

I changed.

It didn’t happen overnight, but then I didn’t get the negative qualities mentioned above quickly. Recovery took time. I know that people can change. It takes a life-altering event to spur it on, though. Most people are too complacent to undertake the massive upheaval that is change.

Certainly, I change in the morning, last thing at night & whenever i’ve exerted myself physically.

Yes, and for some it’s over night. Such as myself and lasting. For others it is a slow process.

Well, I believe there’s probably some kind of core inside of us that will always be the same to some extent. But other than that, I think people can change, yes. Some might always be the same, other might change every single day. Sometimes the change might last, other times everything old thing might just come back and hit you. But yes, I think people can change.

I think that most of us do change, whether we’re aware of this or not. I can’t notice this change as much maybe last week, but when I look back at even just two years ago then I do notice the change. I still think that we have some core elements that makes ourselves whom/what we are, but I think if given enough time, and enough different circumstances, that at least some degree of change in most of us is inevitable.

The simple answer is “Yes and no.”

Let’s start with ‘No’. By the time that our personalities are fully developed, both by nature and nurture, we are pretty much hard-wired in our late teens. Nothing is going to change the characteristics that have developed into a natural ability. Nor are some of the other characteristics that others have and we don’t will become a natural ability to us.

As for ‘Yes’: Sure, we can change. A better descriptive is “adapt”. It is limited to the motivation to do so, as well as finding ways to rely on what our strengths are in order to accomplish the goal; the change. Then there are changes in opinions as we mature. Opinions are separate from personality characteristics.

I’d say, we evolve

From my experience a person can never truly change. They can only learn to focus on the parts of themselves they like to let those parts grow. And try to push away the bad parts they don’t like.

Yes, a serious illness can do this.