There is a story that my kids always remind me about, that I sometimes regret telling them. Im sure the same will happen now that I am telling you! When I arrived at boarding school at the start of my high school career, one of the teachers gave me the nickname “Giant”. This was supposed to be an ironic nickname because I was so small. I weighed in at a massive 35 kg’s and was just short of 1.4 metres tall. I was tiny, especially when compared to some of the 1.8m to 2m fully developed 18 year old’s in the school. I remember later in life handing down some of the clothes I wore in high school to my younger brother who could fit them when he was still in primary school. My shoes size at that point in my life was a UK size 5, which the same size shoe that my oldest son wore in his 2nd year of primary school. I was a small kid. You get the point. Fast forward to almost 30 years later and I am now what I consider to be within the normal physical size of a male my age (with a normal sized Dad bod I am very proud of). I remember meeting someone I had not seen for many years since the “Giant” days and how shocked they were that I am not as small as I was back then. So in this obvious example we cant expect to remain physically the same for 30 years at a time. Why then would we expect anyone to retain the same interests, personality, like or dislikes?
I have a dog named Lucy. I chose Lucy from the SPCA because she was so calm and relaxed when I went viewing the dogs available for adoption. She was perfectly medium sized as to my specification of large enough to startle criminals, but small enough not to scare the children. Lucy is one of the things I love the most after all the humans I love. I love her more than any other material possession I own. Not to say she is more valuable to me, but I am certainly more attached to Lucy than I am to my car. When Lucy arrived at our house I took her out of the car and she ran to the edge of the perimeter, dug herself a patch of sand to lay in and stayed there. We would try and call her and she would not come unless there was an edible treat involved. After retrieving the treat she would hurry back to her sanctuary on the perimeter of the property. Lucy did not bark for about 3 days after arriving. Gradually over time we won her over and she became a bit more trusting. Eventually we realised that Lucy had spent most of her life as an indoor house dog. Unfortunately, because one of my children has a severe dog allergy we could not let her sleep in the house. Instead we got her a warm and comfortable dog house and bed in our garage. Lucy, quickly realised that she was not ever going to sleep in the house and adjusted to her new routine. She also seemed to realise that she was allowed to bark as much as she wanted and we went from never hearing from her, to getting calls from the neighbours at midnight asking us to do something about the barking dog. Lucy had gone from being someone’s in house companion, to a docile dog awaiting the lethal injection at the SPCA, to the lively, happy, loving ball of energy we have today. Even if it meant not sleeping in the house. Basically, Lucy had changed. And she is happier and better for it.
If 13 year old’s can adjust and change and dogs can change, why do we expect people to remain constant and never change? We are constantly evaluating our environment, making judgements and reacting to stimuli every day. Hardly surprising that based on this someone as changed. Some people go from being the best people we know to being the worst people we can imagine. Some people go from liking certain things to not being able to stand them at all. Some of us have gone from looking forward to Friday night drinks with the boys, to jumping out of bed on a Sunday to retrieve the Financial Mail from the mailbox. Its very true I am probably not the same person I was 5 years ago. Maybe not even the same person I was 5 months ago…but that really is OK. On reflection I think it would be worrying if new information did not cause us to consider different things or change our preferences. Even in relationships people change and things change. The friends I have today are not necessarily the friends I had 5 years ago. My relationship with my parents is not necessarily the same as it was a few years ago. Some things may have changed and I may have changed and its perfectly OK!
My final story really is about how this affects us in the work context. I recently moved into a role at work that required a lot more customer interaction. Anyone who has worked with customers in the fast moving consumer packaged goods world know that these guys can be very demanding. It is a constant pendulum that swings between trying to make their day and trying to make sure you are not taken advantage of. To be clear I mean taken advantage of financially as a business and emotionally as a human being. It is an incredibly interesting line of work to be in. About 6 months into my customer facing role one of my former team members remarked how much I had changed. Apparently, even in internal meetings I was now more direct and ruthless in my communication than anybody remembered. I was treating internal meetings the same way I did external customer negotiations. Always looking to secure a win, always trying not to give too much away. You guessed it…I had CHANGED. The point of this story really is about awareness. I was fortunate enough to have people around me who were comfortable enough to tell me their observations. I was not even aware of this change. The truth is I had actually changed, but was not even aware of it until someone pointed it out. With this awareness I am able to make a judgement about how I feel about this change. Do I need to do anything about it or simply accept it and move on? Whatever the answer to this question is, just remember I am not the same person I was 6 months ago. I have probably changed. I have probably grown. I have probably picked up one or two bad traits. And that’s actually OK.
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