Don’t try to change people

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Each of us is characterized by a hundred different personality traits. See a list of the various kinds of traits that may characterize people in Personality traits. People describe us by citing traits or attributes. They may, for example, say we are hardworking, humble, and honest. Or they may say we are impolite, impatient, and selfish. In general, these attributes that define us are habits. They may be habits that are so deeply ingrained and so hard to change that they are often viewed as fixed and innate, however they are habits. Some traits are viewed positively as good traits. Examples: honesty, industriousness, humility, and kindness. Others are viewed negatively as being bad. Examples: dishonesty, laziness, pride, and unkindness. In general most of us have both good traits and bad traits (our faults). Because habits are so very hard to change, once character has formed and solidified in the formative years of childhood, most people go through their entire lives with a particular set of personality traits. Following are some quotations regarding the difficulty of changing habits, once established:

We first make our habits then our habits make us.

Habit is a cable. We weave a thread of it every day, and at

last we cannot break it.

H. Mann

Habit is the deepest law of human nature.

Carlyle

Habit is either the best of servants or the worst of masters.

Emmons

The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until

they are too strong to be broken.

Johnson

Sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a

character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.

G. D. Boardman

A large part of Christian virtue consists in good habits.

Paley

If we would know who is the most degraded and wretched of human

beings, look for a man who has practiced a vice so long that he

curses it and yet clings to it; that he pursues it because he

feels a great law of his nature driving him on toward it; but

reaching it, knows that it will gnaw his heart, and make him

roll himself in the dust with anguish. Habit, to which all of

us are more or less slaves.

Fontaine

Habits are to the soul what the veins and arteries are to the

blood, the courses in which it moves.

Horace Bushnell

Habit, if not resisted, soon becomes necessity.

Augustine

See On Habit.

Most people don’t give a lot of thought to their own personality traits, but other people are very good at seeing them clearly — their good points and especially their faults. There is a Persian proverb: Spectators see better than actors. Others see us better than we do.

There is a big mistake that many people make: They criticize their spouses. They see all the faults in their spouses and try to change them. That is a recipe for trouble.

One of the big facts of life: You can’t change people. It is possible that you may be able to change yourself but you can’t change others. You must accept people as they are, with all of their faults. The person you married is the person you will have to live with. If you can’t accept his faults, you ought not have married him. Inspect merchandise very carefully before you buy it because after you buy it you will have to live with it. One of the big secrets to a happy marriage is simply accepting your spouse as he is. Don’t try to change him.

If we criticize someone we are asking them to change and that is something they don’t know how to do. Changing involves changing habits and that is very hard to do. If we criticize our spouse he will interpret it as non-acceptance of him and it will cause trouble. He will then start pointing out all of your faults.

A loved one may be obese and have all kinds of health problems. He may have sugar diabetes, heart problems, etc. The problem is his habits. We could give him some very good advice: lose weight, change your eating habits, start walking, etc. Our advise would be very good, very helpful to him. But we would be well advised to keep our mouths shut. Such advise is seldom well received. People have to come to realize their own mistakes. If they discover their mistake, understand they have erred, they may then be motivated to do something about it.

Usually the rule is: You can’t help people. They have to discover their own mistakes and help themselves.

Jesus had something to say on this subject:

Matt 7:1 Judge not, that ye be not judged. 2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. 3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? 4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? 5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

7 Oct 2021