A while ago I used to say that people don't change.
I really liked that saying, and I first heard it in the show House MD. It made me feel as if I understood people in some way. It made me feel as if I figured out who they were at one moment, then I would know who they are for the rest of my and their life.
And in a way I still believe that. I don't believe that people don't change at all, because they do, and they can change a lot, so I was wrong in believing that they don't. But I also believe that some parts of people don't change, and they can stay with certain parts of their personality for the rest of their life, which can sometimes be good, other times bad.
Regardless of that, once I grew more as a person I realized that despite my belief, I should never define a person by a single section of their life. This idea came to me first after reflecting on the the way I was at age 12, 14, 16 and at 19.
At each stage of my life I had a goal, a different understanding of life, a different attitude towards responsibilities and towards problems, a different way of behaving with people, sometimes chasing their attention while other times trying to manipulate them, and the examples can keep on going.
I was a different person at different ages, and while certain parts of me stayed pretty much the same, such as being introverted and disliking being around too many people or anyone else for too long, or my interest in fantasy and how it affects my life, the rest changed quite a lot.
At 12 I had no particular plan for my life, and although I thought I could become a mechanic like my father, I didn't really care enough to think about it. All I cared about were my video games, thinking that one day I'll become the best in the world at a game such as Counter Strike, but nothing really beyond that.
At 14 I didn't really care about anything that others were interested in. I had a few of my own interests regarding certain activities on my PC, and it was a time at which I started reading, but I didn't care about many things outside that. I still loved to game and I was spending most of my time in front of my PC, and while I knew that I should think of what I'd like to do with my future, I didn't want to, because "fuck everyone and everything".
At 16 I changed quite drastically. I began thinking about my future and even began working a bit, making my own money online. I decided back then that I wanted to be a freelancer, so I worked to achieve that. I also began reading about entrepreneurship and making plans about what I would do after high school. I was against a lot of things, and I thought I was really smart for my age.
At age 19 I was even more confident in my ability to make it as a freelancer and I quit college to pursue that purpose. I began doing a lot of things, from YouTube to graphic design and even started learning web design and development. I hated everyone who thought I could not achieve my goal and I worked hard to prove them wrong.
At age 22 reality hit me hard, and I had to quit my "dream". I got a normal job for 2 years. I hated it, but it paid the bills. I had to interact with a lot of people, despite my introverted nature. I learned a lot, mainly the fact that a normal job, if approached properly, can be a decent source of income, something I didn't think possible around 3 to 4 years before. In time I learned to completely change what I thought I knew about life and about working.
At age 24 I quit my job, and I needed money so desperately that I had to leave the country to work somewhere else. I learned that if you take a risk, you can move forward in life quite a lot. I also learned that I can do things I never thought I could. I learned that being useful feels great. And I began thinking that normal jobs are not that bad.
And this type of change applied to pretty much all areas of my life. At age 12 I wanted everyone to like me. At age 14 I hated everyone. At age 16 I manipulated people into doing what I wanted. At age 18 I ended up being alone. At age 19 I met new people and began to appreciate their company. At age 20 I got more friends and I began feeling comfortable in their company. In the following years I learned how to treat people better so that they can be happy in my presence as well.
Hell, I even changed the type of games I play, the type of movies I watch, the type of books I read. My interests changed, from business building to philosophy and becoming a better person. Nowadays I would rather be a "virtuous person", as the stoics tried to be, rather than an egocentric who only does things to benefit himself.
With all that being said, it's interesting to think that a person who met me at either stage in my life could define me as that type of person by the way I was at that particular age. It would be wrong. I am a completely different person now than I was when I was 12. Sure, I'm still me, and I still have some of the same interests, even the same ideas in regards to a few things, but I changed, quite a lot in some areas.
And this applies to every single person I've met. I cannot define anyone that I now know by the way they were at 16 when I met them, or at 18 or even at 20. They changed, they evolved, they are different people.
People do change. I was wrong. I am happy to admit that now. And because of this, I know that it's very hard, even wrong, to define a person by a single section of their life.