When Do We Stop Growing?

[Pkia]

I had a conversation with a friend the other day. While the story of how it came about would take a while to explain, the gist of it is about a comment he made that struck me. I was saying it was sad how his sister had changed, but he said that it wasn't that she changed, just that she had come to the age where you become more confident and set in your opinions. She's willing to express them more, and they're unlikely to change because that's "who she is."

I always thought that growing was a continuous process. I knew when I was 15 that I wouldn't have the same values when I was 20 that I did then, and I always thought that they would be significantly different when I reached 25, and 30, and 50. But I'm beginning to agree with my friend that eventually it does get more and more difficult to change ourselves. I think it's hard to change our opinions on life decisions, how people should act, the world in general.

I realize that with extreme life-changing situations these can be shook, but in general I do think that there is a point in our lives when our not just our core beliefs and opinions get set in stone. The vast majority of our opinions do and you're at the point where you are who you're going to be for the rest of your life. Does this point come with age? Or at a stage of your personal growth? Do you think it even really happens at all, or are we really constantly changing ourselves?

[nancy]

I don't think we ever really do. We're all changing, all the time. It's not a kid thing, it's more like a person thing to change. Sure, there's things that never change, but we're all changing all the time. I remember we had to write an essay on something like this for school, and my friend actually wrote: "The person who began typing this sentence is not the same who'll put the period on it." And it's true. On so many levels, I'm not the same person who began this post. Some of my cells have divided, different atoms are in my lungs... and let's not talk mentally. Maybe I haven't even realized it yet, but I know that I have changed. My feelings have changed. My thoughts have changed. Haven't you ever looked back on who you were, say, a year ago, and then went "wow, I've changed"'? How about 6 months? or 2? Or three weeks? Heck, I'm not even the same person I was 2 days ago.
Here's how I think we're built. We are the sum of everything that has ever happened to us. Big or small, important or totally trivial... it's there, and it makes us who we are. I'm who I was when I was 10 plus who I was two weeks after that, plus who I was at 16, only I have gotten rid of some of the things that made me be me when I was ten and I was 16, I've only kept some. Not necessarily the best, just some of them. Maybe some of them I chose to keep, maybe some were just random little things, I don't know. The point is, since things are always happening to you, you cannot be the same person after a while. Because there's necessarily something else in you, something new. And maybe that something new took the place of another something.
And actually, I think it's not just things that happen "outside", so to speak, that change a person. It's also, and probably even in a greater way, what said person thinks and feels that makes them change. You can't be the same at 30 than at 45, or at 60 than at 70. Because you've lived, and the only way in which one can stay the same is not living.
(whatever is expressed as a fact is still only my opinion)

[KoNeko]

Yeah, I'm with Nancy. I think constant life experience gives you a constantly changing perspective. However, when you're older (say, 70), your changes usually are not as apparent as they are when you are 20 or something. I think changes early in your life influence your later changes, but that's not to say that when you're older you can't have drastic changes (anyone say "mid life crisis"?).

[Nie]

You never stop growing.

You do, however, reach a point in your life where you choose how much and how fast you grow and change, and many people choose to really slow down or try to stop altogether as the get older.

It's all about discovering and sculpting yourself. Some people will constantly strive to change and improve because they love to. Other people are more comfortable finding a niche and staying there for as long as they can.

Of course there are always goign to be outside influences that will try to change a person. How flexible you are and how willing you are to change is the deciding factor as to how much you will lwt that change affect you.

I think I've started rambling again, so I'll stop now.

[roricarmody]

A bit off-topic: such interesting subject and yet no posts since October. Tsk, tsk. But anyhoo.

I agree with everything you guys have said: we never stop growing.

However, the term's a bit vague for me; so I'll define 'growing' as holding on to the positive lessons that come out from life experiences - whichever they may be.

Heraclitus believed in never-ending change. That'd mean that we're different each passing second. But for better or for worse? And I think that's were growing kicks in.

Sometimes we resist growing. We make the same mistakes or choices over and over, denying ourselves the opportunity of trying out new things or learn from whatever it is we've done wrong, and move on and change. But when should we grow and when should we just hold on? Maybe, by holding on we're growing.

I don't know if there's someone that can honestly say, "I've always been the same", and doesn't have the desire to change. From the small nasty habits like nail-biting, to deep-roothed emotional issues. Again, when should we have the balls to break away? And what if we make the wrong choice by changing? I suppose you could learn, and then grow?

But it's half-past one now, and I am sleep-deprived and itchy, so this is more of a rambling. I have the vague feeling this doesn't make any sense.

[En]

It would be interesting to know whether our opinions have changed on this subject

In my life, I haven't stopped changing, but I've gotten much more fearful about change. Crazy changes of circumstances have always bothered me - I mean, I'm no big fan of natural disasters or sudden deaths, you know? - but now I get upset when I find out that, say, property taxes are going up in my neighborhood or that someone I thought was going to go to grad school in Iowa is going somewhere else.

Part of this is just accumulated stress (I've been through A LOT of crazy changes in a very short time, though it didn't feel short while all of it was happening) and part is financial worry (and who doesn't know that feeling right now), and part is that I just don't feel like charging, pointing, and aiming the mental brainstorm gun anymore. But I think of this as a rut I've gotten into after years of 60-hour work weeks with no vacation and low lifestyle stability, and so when I do make myself change, I try to change the instability and deputize more of the work... it's just not being effective yet

Oh well. Trees sometimes have thin growth rings. This is just one of those times.

[Calantha]

One of my high school English teachers told me that after about the age of sixteen no one really changes all that much, circumstances do.

It's hard for me to tell if I've changed, but I think I have grown a little. Maybe not a lot, but a little. I still have very similar insecurities, and the things that made me tick when I was twelve, sixteen, twenty four, are all about the same. I've grown into myself, though. It's slow and gradual, but it's like I'm becoming a warm, old quilt I can wrap myself up in.

[Lianne]

I dont think that you really stop growing. We are forever learning new things about our environment and ourselves and i think that would make it hard to stop growing. However i do think that perhaps there are certain parts of us that jst make us who we are. These things would be unlikely to change but if we did grow out of them would change us in a more noticeable way...

[En]

The theory of cognitive psychology holds that there are three levels of human thought/behavior - the surface level, the day-to-day actions; the idea level, thinking about actions and reasoning to do or not to do and why; and the belief level. Beliefs, like whether you think you'll be punished for doing bad things before and/or after death, are really hard to change. Ideas you can work through more easily. Actions you can learn to change even more easily still.

Sometimes a belief formed in one life situation is destructive in a later life situation. For example, kids raised by abusive parent figures are sometimes so afraid of conflict that they have difficulty framing questions. If one of these kids, grown to adulthood, has only one job opportunity as a reporter for a newspaper, what's the adult going to do? The belief that he or she should be afraid to ask questions will have to change. That's an extreme example, but it applies in other situations, too. So the object of cog.psych is to help people adjust their actions, their ideas if necessary to help adjust their actions, and if possible, to help them adjust their beliefs if the ones they have are causing them to behave or think destructively.

Trauma can change a belief suddenly and deeply, so another part of cog.psych is to help people think through the beliefs and ideas caused by trauma. I agree with this idea, so I don't quite believe that people don't change after 16. I changed pretty dramatically at 26 and again at 31 and am only now settling into a very different life that requires some changed beliefs.

[KoNeko]

I think that there are some more dramatic changes that people have than others, like usually there's the whole angsty teenage thing, and then you kind of go through life as a young adult for a few years, but I'm pretty sure I didn't really have a real idea of who I was or what I was doing or anything until very, very recently. Maybe like the last couple of years or so. And I'm sure when my situtation changes then I'm going to have to learn to adapt to that (this is probably in the context of moving somewhere for a postdoc, rather than the "marriage and kids" route, mind you. But if that were to come along, yeah I'm pretty sure there are adaptation processes that go with them as well.)

The adjustment stuff is interesting. I still think we are constantly growing, in the sense of change at least (since I think we're using them basically synonymously, but this should be clarified). But it's not clear that we are always growing for the better. I think I'm much more cynnical and jaded than when I was first here as a bright-eyed, bushy tailed little baby lawyer who wanted to change the world for the better and fight for orphaned elephants or save starving kids in Ethiopia or something. That'd all still be nice and stuff, but I know that I'm not really in a position to do that. I also thought that I'd be a super awesome lawyer and then end up on the High Court of Australia as its first nonwhite nonmale member. While the position for that is still open (everyone on the HCA has been white in its history), I do feel like some of these things are slipping away from me. Sometimes coming to terms with the fact that one is not invincible is pretty tough. But it's okay I guess to readjust and make those changes, although they might not always be as satisfactory as we first thought.

But I don't know, I'm pretty much a humean on the subject.

[En]

I wish we were always growing for the better. But I, too, have sprouted cynical streaks, particularly with respect to certain situations. Like, I'm really done even pretending to laugh when older white men come in to the bookshop to ask a question and then ask me where my father is. (Apparently I don't look old or expert - or male - enough to help them ) I'm also really, really cranky about certain political issues, which isn't useful at all when someone tries to discuss one and I get feisty, and especially when my ideas don't line up with a "party line" (which they don't - some of my positions might look Libertarian, though the reasons behind them aren't, while other opinions are conspicuously liberal and still others are technoprogressive).

Every day's an effort for everyone, I guess, and everything is at least a little bit of a compromise. All we can do (didn't Gandalf say this?) is decide what to do with the time that is given to us (and here's my addendum), making a few choices each day and trying to stay open to possibilities for choices later.

[Calantha]

I don't think it is being jaded, necessarily, but more honest and practical with myself than I was as a teen. I've never been terrible impractical, but over the years, I've more of a sense of what I can complete, what battles I can fight, etc, and I've learned to let the rest go...for the most part.

I used to get a high off of thinking I could change the world, but now I'm happy with very small things, like a thank you note from a student or seeing a kid pass who I thought wouldn't. I'm not sure if this is acceptance that the "big" changing things don't really happen all that often or if it's the realization that little things are what make the overall change occur.

But then again, I guess that's a bit of what we're talking about, no?

Then again, I taught one of my students two words, though, that seem to describe me today to a T: curmudgeon and snarky.

[moira]

As far as core beliefs go, I am probably pretty set on them. Though I'd like to believe that I can be open to my heart telling me to stay open to change.

My actions have learned to change. For example, my work place, which has been Wal-Mart for the past almost 7 years. I used to department manage bras/lingerie/purses/socks/hosiery/etc. It wasn't the most customer service interactive place in the store, and to be honest, it wasn't a real interest of mine to drop what I was doing to help someone. I enjoyed the labor, and keeping to myself or helping my coworkers with projects. Then I switched to the Optical Department, where it is very much Customer Service oriented. It required change. My actions toward people had to change, which ultimately ended up changing my feelings inside toward customer service. I am now pretty focused on helping the customer, and I find it rewarding, because I receive compliments semi-frequently on the kind of care I get. Like one woman bought a pair of glasses from our store. I wasn't the one who sold the glasses to her, but I helped adjust them to her face when she came in to pick them up. She told me that I was the reason she came in to buy glasses, was because of the care I had given her in replacing some nose pads on her previous pair.

I have also made a conscious choice in the past few months to open myself up to more people, particularly at work. If you don't work in Optical, I just try not to talk to you very much, because I'm shy, and I've preferred to keep more to myself. But since opening myself up, I laugh at work a lot more now, and find myself in more upbeat spirits. Wow, I did not even consciously realize that until writing this down!

So yes. We keep changing. The core of ourselves? I've been a hugger as long as I can remember. I care deeply about people, empathize well, observe and think and introvert and have a drive to help people out with their problems. That's never changed about me. Does it fluctuate? Yes.