One thing I have learnt over the last few years is that no matter what you do, what you say, where you go, who you choose to be with, etc etc.. one thing is sure to be told to you.. and those three golden words are
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“You have changed” !
And believe me, eight of the ten times you are told that, it has got simply nothing to do with you.
That said, no person in their sane minds can disregard the universal fact that Homo sapiens is an ever- evolving species. As a human being, you have two choices at any given point in time: You evolve and adapt to the environment around you. Or you don’t , and die. The choice is yours.
What, then, is the big deal about? What really do people mean when they tell you “You have changed” ? What is it that they expect us to do as a response to this query of theirs? And is this even a query at all, or just a matter-of-fact-statement? They sure don’t expect us to spend our entire life being exactly the same person? Is that even humanly possible? :-?
Well, helping myself a bit with these questions, here I am putting down some simple and probable interpretations of the words “You have changed”. Lucky if you are, at least one of these interpretations might be “the” one for you :P
>> When you have gathered enough courage, for the first time ever, to say NO to someone, and they tell you “You have changed”, it probably means that it is something that they expected from you at some point of time in future, but not really now. Basically, here it is an expression of sheer disappointment at their own luck.
>>When you meet an old friend after a couple of years and you are told, “You have changed”, it definitely means that they expected you to be the same old I-don’t-care-what-I-wear-types, and are kind of surprised to see how the hell have you turned out to be so good-looking, pretty or handsome. In this case, it is a sure-shot expression of envy that cannot be helped :P
>>When you refuse to lend a thing to someone who keeps losing or damaging all the stuff you lend to them, and they tell you “You have changed”, it more than anything means that they are having their last shot at making you lend them your stuff. Evidently, the usage of the golden words here is just a desperate last attempt at getting the required article of concern here.
>>When you confront someone for having wronged you in life, and they tell you “You have changed”, it is nothing but their way of putting the blame of everything wrong onto an unreasonable fact that can let them get out of the dirt without getting dirty. Specifically, here is where these words are most inappropriately used or rather misused, to simply start the blame game.
>>When you are repeatedly asked by people to change yourself in some respect, and when you actually change yourself according to them, you are told “You have changed”; then it’s simply a change that they thought they wanted to make in you, but did not know if they could handle this “change”. These three words are an indication to their own ignorance of their wishes.
>>And then there is this last thing that happens to a lot of people. Sometimes one of your good qualities begin to hurt your own self so much that you intuitively decide to change that good quality into something not-so-good. Life is sometimes that bitter. Here again, you may be told “You have changed”. For the first time ever, they really mean what they say. This time the words mean “You HAVE changed”. Life has changed you.
No matter what you do, what you say, where you go, who you choose to be with, there is nothing that can stop you from changing. Because it is an inherent and inevitable element of human nature. And anyone who claims they haven’t changed or never will, are lying. Not to you or to me, but more importantly to their own selves.
