• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Europe Breaking News

Breaking News Stories from Europe and Around the World

  • Home
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Disclaimers
  • DMCA
  • Privacy Policy
  • Submit your story
  • Show Search
Hide Search

You are here: Home / We have a culture of people afraid to change but who secretly want to

We have a culture of people afraid to change but who secretly want to

· April 12, 2019 ·

I saw a cartoon recently in which a butterfly and a caterpillar (stay with me) are sitting at a table, having a drink together, when the caterpillar says to the butterfly, “you’ve changed”. To this, the butterfly responds “we’re supposed to”.

It caught my attention because recently I’ve seen, “you’ve changed” being levelled at people as the worst insult possible, as if no offence could be graver than daring to change.

We see this a lot with those in the public eye; as I mentioned in last week’s column, we demand a certain level of authenticity from our favourite celebrities, we watch them closely, looking for proof that they have remained ‘real’, that they are, beneath the expensive clothes and perfectly toned abs, ‘just like us’.

And while it goes without saying that celebrities are mere human beings and are no more special than any of us, (except for our saviour, Beyoncé), it seems almost ludicrous to demand that they remain completely unaffected by, say, performing in front of 100,000 people, screaming their name, or having their start-up valued at twenty billion dollars.

It doesn’t excuse someone turning into a tantrum-throwing monster but wealth and success on that kind of massive scale is such a rarefied occurrence, how could it not change you?

All major life changes have a similar impact — the unexpected death of a loved one, for example. A long-term chronic illness. Enduring a traumatic event such as sexual violence, abuse, or a near-death experience. Even with the help of a good therapist and the support of friends and family, how could you expect to emerge exactly the same as you had been before? Such incidents shape us, subtly shifting our futures, creating new selves in which to inhabit, and that doesn’t have to be a negative thing. It’s just different.

I find it interesting that people seem to be simultaneously terrified of change — viewing it as a disruption of their desire to see the world as something they can control, and disasters as something they can safeguard against if only they try hard enough —while still striving to become a New You, a Better You.

New Year’s Resolutions are predicated on the desire to change your life; to earn more money, to find a partner, to stop losing your temper with the kids, drink less, go to the gym more.

(As an aside, I don’t believe this to be true. True, sustainable happiness comes from within, it cannot be maintained from external markers such as your appearance.)

It appears to me that we have a culture of people who are afraid of change but who secretly want to change — and then, just to make matters more complicated, don’t actually believe that change is possible at all.

It takes a huge amount of cognitive dissonance to A) tell others they’ve changed, and mean it as an slight, B) write down ‘lose weight’ as your resolution every January 1st, and C) shrug your shoulders and say “a leopard never changes its spots” when someone repeats a certain pattern of behaviour, over and over again.

Of course, we are capable of real change. (Even on a physical level, we essentially become a new person every seven years because in that time, every cell in our bodies is replaced by a new cell. Isn’t that wild?!) I have seen this is in my own life.

The events that others might assume would have enacted the greatest change — books being published, film rights being sold, etc — have been lovely, but the shift in consciousness that has had the greatest impact on my day to day has been my recovery.

Sometimes I look at my life now and I am stunned by how different it is to even two years ago. I’ve reclaimed so much free time because I’m not using up hours of my day to engage in eating disorder behaviours, I have more energy, I am capable of radical honesty in my relationships because I’m don’t have to lie about my eating.

I go to the gym as a way of managing stress rather than burning fat, I eat dessert when I’m out for a meal with my boyfriend and think nothing of it afterwards except that it was delicious, I make a snack for myself when I am hungry and I move on with my day.

To most people reading this, what I’ve described will seem simple, every day. For me and for others who have suffered from disordered eating, they are acts of revolution. For the first time in my adult life, I feel free.

Yet, for all that, I am essentially the same person.

Before, I thought that recovery would mean a metamorphosis of the sort experienced by the aforementioned butterfly, a St Paul of the Road to conversion into someone entirely different. I have begun to wonder if, perhaps, real change happens when you become more of you really are, inhabiting fully who you were put on this planet to be. Maybe the only thing we need to do is take a deep breath and say, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference”.

Louise Says

READ: The Flatshare by Beth O’Leary. Two strangers. Eye watering rental prices in London. A solution? Tiffy and Leon will share a bed — he has solo occupancy during the day, she has it while Leon is working the night shift — but they never meet. This is uplifting and joyous; I fell in love with Tiffy and Leon.

GO: The stage adaptation of Maeve Binchy’s seminal novel, Light A Penny Candle, comes to the Everyman Theatre from April 16 to April 20 (it plays at Dublin’s Gaiety Theatre from April 23). Get tickets at everymancork.com

  • At Boise's first Pridefest, people had to hide behind masks. Now thousands celebrate.
  • John Cameron Mitchell’s latest film blends Neil Gaiman, punk, and teen aliens
  • Nigeria: Rub-a-Dub Master, Ras Kimono Dies At 60
  • Unmasked: Inside the miraculous, mad, mysterious life of Dr. MooMoo
  • On Scorpion, Drake rages against the internet
  • Horror director Leigh Whannell takes us from Saw to Upgrade
  • Nigeria: Osinbajo Urges Pastors to Intensify Prayers for Nation's Peace
  • China has turned Xinjiang into a police state like no other
  • Nigeria: Prof Yemi Osinbajo
  • Wisdom Of Ali

Filed Under: Views views, viewscolumnists, health, By Louise ONeill, culture does it change, culture how to change, organizational culture how to change, man wants to change his age, 60s cultural changes, why cultural change is important, changed peoples quotes, 365 peoples who changed the world list, want change the world, observations on social political and cultural change, afraid change quotes, afraid change, forbes how do you change an organizational culture, seeing peoples face change, songs about secretly wanting someone, observation about social political and cultural change, blizzard how to change secret question, samantha chang most wanted bra, modernization cultural change and democracy, cultures can change, change short jacket most wanted, tajik peoples culture, how culture can be changed, listen do you want to know a secret, what secretly want, quotes about secretly wanting someone, change management for culture change, change who wants, big changes in people's lives

Primary Sidebar

RSS Recent Stories

  • UK weather forecast: Up to 5cm of snow to blast Britain – will it hit your area?
  • What split rumours? The Bachelor’s Anna Heinrich gushes over husband Tim Robards as they spend quality time together in Sydney
  • New Zealand’s eruption toll rises as search goes on
  • Benefit cheat couples pretending to be single are set to cost taxpayers more than £10million-per-week
  • The month of mooching and melancholy
Copyright © 2019 Europe Breaking News. Power by Wordpress.