Can People Change?

We re often in a position of deeply hoping that someone on whom we depend might change: become (perhaps) less defensive or less angry, kinder or more thoughtful... A lot of our energy can be spent trying to prompt them to evolve. But can people in fact ever change? And how come we ve ended up in a position of wanting them to change so badly? Sign up to our new newsletter and get 10% off your first online order of a book, product or class: https://bit.ly/2LayJ9F For gifts and more from The School of Life, visit our online shop: https://bit.ly/2Rnq0rg Our website has therapy, articles and products to help you lead a more fulfilled life: https://bit.ly/2DLxD2I FURTHER READING You can read more on this and other subjects on our blog, here: https://bit.ly/363o8bB “‘Can people change?’ The question may sound somewhat abstract and disinterested, as if one were asking for a friend or for the universe, but it is likely to be a good deal more personally – and painfully – motivated than that. We ask, typically and acutely, when we’re in a relationship with someone who is inflicting a great deal of pain on us: someone who is refusing to open their hearts or can never stop lying, someone who is aggressive or detached, someone who is harming themselves or managing to devastate us. We ask too because the one immediately obvious response to frustration isn’t in this case open to us: we’re not able to simply get up and go, we are too emotionally or practically invested to give up, something roots us to the spot. And so, with the example of one troublesome human in mind, we start to wonder outwards about human nature in general, what it might be made of and how malleable it could turn out to be...” MORE SCHOOL OF LIFE Visit us in person at our London HQ: https://bit.ly/2sIHX9F Watch more films on SELF in our playlist: http://bit.ly/TSOLself You can submit translations and transcripts on all of our videos here: https://www.youtube.com/timedtext_cs_panel?c=UC7IcJI8PUf5Z3zKxnZvTBog&tab=2 Find out how more here: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6054623?hl=en-GB SOCIAL MEDIA Feel free to follow us at the links below: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theschooloflifelondon/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheSchoolOfLife Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theschooloflifelondon/ CREDITS Produced in collaboration with: Deanca Rensyta Mihardja https://www.behance.net/deancarensa5a9 Title animation produced in collaboration with Vale Productions https://www.valeproductions.co.uk/