“I will change my life, which has been unable to change me,” is a phrase in an Italian song – E dimmi che non vuoi morire (Tell me you don’t want to die), sung by Patty Pravo – that has always intrigued me, ever since it was launched at the 1997 Sanremo song festival.
The phrase is similar to one in another song, written in 1990 by Claudio Baglioni, called Tamburi Lontani, in which the singer says le cose cambiano per vivere, e vivono per cambiare, which I lifted for my headline.
I find the above phrases intense in their complexity and profoundly beautiful in describing a person’s evolution.
People change with experience. Everything that happens to us is a small brick that is constructed in our personality, and makes us what we are today. But what we are today is not what we will be tomorrow, as today’s experience will make us a different person when the sun rises again. Many times, the change is small, barely noticeable; but there are occasions when the change from one day to another is enormous.
If one event, big or small, that took place had not happened, we would be different persons to the ones we are today.
A line read in a book, a comment someone makes in the office or an email received may make a tiny change in one’s character; an altercation with the manager or partner, an anonymous letter full of threats or a broken nose following a fight have more serious consequences.
Although experiences may be positive or negative, and both leave their trail in our lives, unfortunately it is the bad happenings that mostly affect the way we think and behave. The effect of positive happenings is quite momentary, although certainly beneficial for our confidence and self-respect.
Unwanted happenings that are unexpected, news that is unwelcome and events that are unplanned can have severe repercussions on the way we think and the way we live. Sometimes what happens seems insignificant, but it still has an effect on us. It might not happen today, and we might not realise it now, but there will come a time when reality sinks in. At other times, we immediately understand that the impact of what has taken place will immediately give a new sense to our life.
Not everyone reacts in the same way. Some manage to take everything in their stride. “What does not kill me makes me stronger,” is their philosophy. But others, the weaker ones, suffer greatly, and find it hard to overcome the obstacles and challenges that life puts before them. For them, they seem to be going uphill all the time, and going uphill for them is always equivalent to climbing the Everest.
Not everyone has a good memory, but there are happenings that are hard to forget for everyone. It is these happenings that, generally speaking, make or break us.
A dog that leaps at a boy makes that boy fear dogs for the rest of his life, even in adulthood. A teenager who sees his father embraced with another woman may start to inwardly resent his dad. A young man who is let down by a friend may not be able to establish relationships with others, preferring to be alone and perhaps even lonely rather than risk being betrayed again. A swimmer who comes last in a race and is laughed at by his friends may not have the confidence to take part in any other competition.
Of course, although events that happen at a young age tend to have a greater impact, other happenings in adulthood also mould our personality. We may have grown and matured, but we are still not immune to the hard blows of life.
A man who loses a job from one day to another may feel that he has disappointed his whole family and finds it hard to recover. A couple who in spite of their efforts grow apart too much to patch things up will believe that everything in their life has gone wrong. A father who learns his child tried to commit suicide or who turned to drugs will blame himself for having failed in his or her upbringing. The death of a loved one also brings about a drastic change in our personality.
We may learn to swim against the current, but sometimes the waves are too strong and throw us back.
Everyone has his own little world, one that he tries to protect, one that he tries to defend, sometimes at all costs. We all want to survive, we all want to succeed, and many times we do it at the expense of others. In the jungle, the strongest and fittest survive. In the human jungle, it is the strong-willed and most determined who will be on top.
There have been and there are people who live to change, and whose own ways, good or bad, have shaped the history of humanity. But I believe that the great majority of us change to live. And they need to continuously change to be able to carry on. They are constrained to do so.
The world out there is too large and moving too fast. It is hard to keep the pace. A mobile phone launched today will be obsolete in a month, but it is not only technology that is constantly seeking – and finding – new ground. It is society itself that is always on the move, leaving the individuals that make it up with too little time to think, and struggling to adapt to the changing lifestyle and circumstances.
Life is like a fast-speed train. Very few are comfortably in the first class compartments, drinking champagne while they push buttons to make the world go round. The rest of us are at the back, crammed in small spaces, trying to dodge the tables and chairs that fly from one end to another. We are also trying to follow the instructions given by those buttons being pushed in the first compartment. Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we don’t. Some are desperately trying not to fall off. Some do end up falling.
What we live for is those fleeting moments of positivity.
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