Capacity for Change

During one of my stints at a dot-com company back in 2000, one of the more experienced fellows in the office used to say, "The time to make up your mind about someone is never." What he clearly meant by that was that people have the capacity to change and you'll never know when people are able to make that change. 

I agree with him to a point, but I have found that most folks will only change to a limited extent. For better or worse, at a certain point our character and experience has formed us. I'm sure that happens to everyone at a different time in our lives. However, once that's been set we find ourselves victims to the forces of momentum rather than choice. We become comfortable and perhaps even complacent as we move through our personal and professional lives.

Change is typically at least a little uncomfortable. It's more uncomfortable for some of us, versus others. But, you have to ask yourself, do I want to grow? You cannot grow without a little discomfort, without challenge and being forced to adapt. This is true of almost everything in life.

I once heard a advanced driving instructor say that most cars are capable of at least 0.7 g's in a turn. That means you'd experience 70% of earth's gravity in a sideways force in a turn. But he also said that he would estimate that 90+% of all drivers would rather hit a tree that put their car into a maneuver that would result in .7 g's.

If that doesn't scare you, it should. We'd rather hit a virtually immovable object than subject ourselves to short term discomfort. If this anecdote doesn't make the rest of my point for you, I suggest you consult some sort of life coach. Immediately.

Good luck.