Can People Change ?

[Bonzi]

I saw this on the board - worded differently. I was like, ok, cool, that's an interesting topic....
But was about politics and really I don't care if Trump or Hillary or whoever changes.......

But I am curious if you think people can change their core personality

 

[Asclepias]

Yes. Any habit can be broken.

 

[Auld Phart]

Miracles can happen.

Circumstances can turn an honest person into a thief.

The reverse?

possible, but not as common

 

[Ravi]

Sure, look at Robert Byrd.

 

[Michelle420]

yes

 

[DarkFury]

Yes

 

[Auld Phart]

Ther guy that waited til he was basically on his deathbed to announce he had a black daughter?

 

[Ravi]

Ther guy that waited til he was basically on his deathbed to announce he had a black daughter?

You're thinking of Thomas Jefferson.

 

[The Great Goose]

Nope.

 

[Auld Phart]

Ther guy that waited til he was basically on his deathbed to announce he had a black daughter?

You're thinking of Thomas Jefferson.

No, I confused him with Strom Thurman

 

[Cassy Mo]

Ther guy that waited til he was basically on his deathbed to announce he had a black daughter?

I thought that was Strom Thurmond.

Oops, I see it's been corrected.

 

[Auld Phart]

Ther guy that waited til he was basically on his deathbed to announce he had a black daughter?

I thought that was Strom Thurmond.

Oops, I see it's been corrected.

Always get those two confused for some reason

 

[Cassy Mo]

And yes to your question, Bonzi.

 

[Cassy Mo]

Always get those two confused for some reason

Same here, with different people.

 

[Pogo]

Ther guy that waited til he was basically on his deathbed to announce he had a black daughter?

I thought that was Strom Thurmond.

Oops, I see it's been corrected.

It was Strom Thurmond, but he never acknowledged it. His family confirmed it, after she spilled the beans, after he croaked.

Essie Mae Washington Williams, now also deceased.

 

[midcan5]

Curious how so many answer 'yes' but give no explanation. I think some people can change easily others not so much. Depends a lot on your circumstances in life. I am infinitely fascinated by people who have had it tough in life but remain open and optimistic, and others who had things easy but are pessimistic to an extreme. How can that be. We - large family - grew up dirt poor and yet given that experience everyone looks at life differently within certain boundaries. And that I think goes to something we often overlook, biology. I see in our grandkids and others how personality traits are obvious so early but yet very complex. Life changes people everyday but people see that within themselves.

Can people really change? - Quora
7 Things You Can Never Change About Someone

"Our love of lockstep is our greatest curse, the source of all that bedevils us. It is the source of homophobia, xenophobia, racism, sexism, terrorism, bigotry of every variety and hue, because it tells us there is one right way to do things, to look, to behave, to feel, when the only right way is to feel your heart hammering inside you and to listen to what its timpani is saying." Anna Quindlen

"When thinking changes your mind, that's philosophy.
When God changes your mind, that's faith.
When facts change your mind, that's science." from edge.org

"A surefire politics of change would necessarily involve getting people in the middle — from the 30th to the 70th percentile — to see their own economic self-interest. If they vote in their own self-interest, they’ll elect people who are likely to be more aligned with people with lower incomes as well as with them. As long as people in the middle identify more with people on the top than with those on the bottom, we are doomed. The obscene amount of money flowing into the electoral process makes things harder yet." Peter Edelman

"Which are the arguments and how many are there? I must have an inbred urge toward symmetry. In canvassing for the principal ways of criticizing, assaulting, and ridiculing the three successive "progressive" thrusts of Marshall's story, I have come up with another triad: that is, with three principal reactive-reactionary theses, which I call the perversity thesis or thesis of the perverse effect, the futility thesis, and the jeopardy thesis. According to the perversity thesis, any purposive action to improve some feature of the political, social, or economic order only serves to exacerbate the condition one wishes to remedy. The futility thesis holds that attempts at social transformation will be unavailing, that they will simply fail to "make a dent." Finally, the jeopardy thesis argues that the cost of the proposed change or reform is too high as it endangers some previous, precious accomplishment." Albert Hirschman 'The Rhetoric of Reaction'

"...One did not have to be very bright to realize how little one could do to change one’s situation; one did not have to be abnormally sensitive to be worn down to a cutting edge by the incessant and gratuitous humiliation and danger one encountered every working day, all day long. The humiliation did not apply merely to working days, or workers; I was thirteen and was crossing Fifth Avenue on my way to the Forty-second Street library, and the cop in the middle of the street muttered as I passed him, “Why don’t you ******* stay uptown where you belong?” When I was ten, and didn’t look, certainly, any older, two policemen amused themselves with me by frisking me, making comic (and terrifying) speculations concerning my ancestry and probable sexual prowess, and, for good measure, leaving me flat on my back in one of Harlem’s empty lots. Just before and then during the Second World War, many of my friends fled into the service, all to be changed there, and rarely for the better, many to be ruined, and many to die. Others fled to other states and cities—that is, to other ghettos. Some went on wine or whiskey or the needle, and are still on it. And others, like me, fled into the church." James Baldwin

 

[IsaacNewton]

Donald Trump used to be an overbearing dumbass simpleton, now he's an overbearing dumbass simpleton with followers.

 

[Bonzi]

so much for this NOT being political!

anyway, you can change habits, but I think at the core you are still the same.
I ACT like an entirely different person now then, say, before I was married.
But deep down, I feel the same way I did before - my wants, desires etc. I have only learned to "curb" them (suppress maybe?) - because they are not acceptable or appropriate (?) as a married person (probably as a person in general) -

I'm not sure. For example, if my husband left me, would I revert back totally?
I think it would be partial....

 

[IsaacNewton]

so much for this NOT being political!

anyway, you can change habits, but I think at the core you are still the same.
I ACT like an entirely different person now then, say, before I was married.
But deep down, I feel the same way I did before - my wants, desires etc. I have only learned to "curb" them (suppress maybe?) - because they are not acceptable or appropriate (?) as a married person (probably as a person in general) -

I'm not sure. For example, if my husband left me, would I revert back totally?
I think it would be partial....

Yeah I know, but it is in 'general discussion'.

I think people in general can change. Thoughts control everything people do, change the thoughts and everything else changes. I think yoda said that. Then he died. And Luke was sad. But now Obi has a friend in glowland.

 

[Bonzi]

I was thinking about this.
When people talk about Christianity, they say "only God can change me" but I think you can do anything you want if you REALLY want to in regards to your feelings and actions.

I mean, you can't control the initial feel - like sudden hate, lust, whatever, but you can then CHOOSE to dwell on or pursue it......