It feels like fragility is a fundamental part of the human condition; as though once you gain the capacity to verbally express emotion you also gain the understanding that you have the power to shake the emotions of others. Emotions are tied up in everything we do. This is especially true of perception. We learn see people in one way, be it through repeated exposure or basic stereotyping. When a person doesn’t behave in a fashion that we’ve come to expect, we tend to instantly become defensive and afraid.
Are we not allowed to change our minds? Can’t we evolve? Inevitably it creates a singular presumption in the human mind: You cannot tell people how you really feel. On the one hand honesty helps us understand how we come across to others. On the other hand, honesty hurts and is often misinterpreted as an attack. Suddenly the truth is a very bad thing. It is a losing bet whose outcome is destined to weaken your position. So you learn to avoid conversations. You embrace compromise and you settle for the cold silence of unspoken thoughts.
Maybe it isn’t that people don’t want to change but that people realize how hard changing is, so they work equally hard to hold on to the memory of what was, working backwards to capture a moment they can never catch–one that has already passed. Changing is hard work, and once you admit that others can do it you have to admit that you can do it yourself. Therefore it is far easier, at times, to spend your energy accepting that people change all the time and you too must change and grow as a result. Changing means leaving your comfort zone, but not changing means that comfort zone is built on an ever shifting foundation and it won’t belong before that foundation crumbles.