Here are two trains of thoughts-
1. People should accept you for WHO you are. You shouldn’t have to “change” for someone. Be Yourself!
Or-
2. You should work to improve yourself! Always be working to become better. Be a better person, smarter, more fit! Get out there and be more social! Seize the day!
Hmm, so we should change ourselves, right? But we shouldn’t change for others?
If I didn’t change, I’d be living at home with my parents and asking what was for dinner tonight. Hey, if that is your life goal (to live at home with your parents….follow those dreams!) but that’s just not for me.
You should also change for people…especially your spouse. If you are a jerk, you need to change that. I do stupid stuff that makes my wife upset all the time. I do smart stuff that makes her upset but it is for the betterment of the family (so I’m not going to change). She has told me what upsets her and I have made the change for the better. I’m not some insensitive dope who doesn’t want to get better.
Remember: “You don’t have to sick to get better!”
Now, there are times when I’m not going to change. Not all of my advice is worthless advice. I’m not going to stop working hard. I’ll continue to a good parent. I don’t give up because life is hard today. Stuff happens; you take a deep breath and move forward. There are days when I feel overwhelmed but I don’t fall apart.
So if you are a pigheaded jerk, you should change. If you yell at the neighborhood kids because they are making “too much noise”, you should change. If you are afraid to travel, you definitely need to change. If you think you are better than everyone else, please, go ahead and change (and stop thinking like that….you are a nobody everyone hates).
Kevin Hellriegel's Blog of Worthless Advice 
Love this. “Change” is a difficult concept for most. I see a lot of cases where people say they should never have to change, and people should accept them “as they are”. I can understand that to a degree. If I go shopping for an apple, but buy a banana, then it’s my own damn fault if I start complaining that my banana doesn’t look or taste like an apple. So in some ways yes, people are what they are and we need to accept them as such.
But at the same time, people can always become better. Then can always make mistakes, learn from them, and strive to not make the same mistakes next time. People can and should be willing to change. Actually, I think life is constant change. To deny that change should have to apply to you seems rather foolish.
Good post! I love how well written this post is.
It’s an interesting post, I believe we all change anyway. Life will change you not always for the better.
Hi Kevin, may I reblog this? I think this article is superb! 🙂
Sure, please feel free to!! Thanks!
awesome 🙂
Growth is change. To try to change to please another person is folly. “Jerk” is a generic label and depends on your point of view. Sometimes the mirror is the only one who understands.
Yelling at the neighbor’s kids doesn’t work in our culture, and only makes their parents mad at you, so if you want peace, you should consider changing your methods.
However, I believe yelling is underutilized in our society, which represses its rage until it explodes in violence. Yelling is a great tension-reliever, like the primal screaming of a rooster or a lion, and it can be an expression of the joy of living. Kids instinctively understand that, until it is socialized out of them. If you out-loud them, their yelling will no longer feel so irksome.
I, for one, would rather hear kids yell than listen to the louder drone of machine noise that comes from all directions, including traffic, power tools, airplanes, helicopters, and loud, bad music everywhere I go.
Spot on… problem is, that real jerks usually don’t realize that they are jerks so they might not change. But hey, maybe we should tell them more often? 😉
This is suspiciously unworthless, Kevin.
Think it was Ram Dass that said ‘the world is perfect; including my desire to change it.’ – key is probably to be honest with ourselves about whether we’re using the ‘perfect as you are’ view as a cop out, or from a genuine deep love and capacity for empathy 😉
x enjoyed the food for thought, and read – nice one.