I like to think that I have grown wise as I have grown older. I definitely know a lot more stuff than I did twenty years ago.
But every once in a while, I have a moment of clarity and I realize that I basically behave the exact same way I did in high school or even earlier. So I have gained knowledge but I react with the same patterns and habits that I formed as a kid.
It is a sobering and not altogether pleasant realization. (Good thing I tend to forget about it for months at a time :) And maybe knowing more stuff is an illusion too. I found some of my notebooks from college and was astonished that I once understood any of them.
We all probably have friends that refuse to change. Their bad behaviors are obvious to us and they often persist for years and years. Often they are aware of their issues, maybe they even complain about them, but even when things are pointed out to them, they dont change.
Seeing this stuff in others makes for good gossip. Seeing it in oneself, not so much.
Makes me think about how important it is to get things right as a child. It seems that once we learn a behavior, it is very, very hard for us to change it. More often, we learn not to see it at all.
That puts even more pressure on parents and I suspect we learn a lot of behavior REALLY early, long before parents think about it.
Being able to reprogram oneself, to truly learn and adapt, seems so hard I wonder how many people really can do it.
