Welcome dear reader!
If you’ve ever said to yourself, “He’s not the same anymore,” or looked at someone you love and thought, “She’s changed a lot,” you are on the right page, this is for you and i would try to let you know about it and trust me you wont regret reading it.
Because you’re not alone. We all carry this silent statement when the people we love start becoming strangers.
But maybe… they’re not becoming strangers.
Maybe they’re just becoming the real them, a newer, stronger, better version of them.
Maybe that’s just life, its not they changed like the weather did.
The self is always becoming, people aren’t fixed:
We grow attached to who someone was before, the way they laughed, cared, texted, or made time a memory for us. And when that changes, who were literally a home for us, even very little, it feels personal. But the actual thing is change isn’t personal. It’s natural, just for an experiment go meet someone you met years ago, you knows the real you, ask them “am i the same?” you’ll get the answer in return.
According to psychologist Carl Rogers, the self is not a fixed entity, it’s always in a process of becoming. We all humans are always evolving, emotionally, psychologically, biologically. Our thoughts change. Our needs and interest change.
And still… we expect others to remain constant. But that’s not how life works, acceptance is necessary boss.
Heraclitus’s philosophy of change:
In ancient philosophy, Heraclitus a philosopher once said: “You cannot step into the same river twice.” Why?
Because the water is always flowing, water inside is always different, just like time, just like people.
You may want your best friend to still be that high school version. You may want your partner to still be that excited, respectable who values you and gives you time from year one. But people go through storms, grief, growth, and revelations.
They change not to hurt you, but to survive, if everything was alright, then why they changed? Maybe everything was fine for you but not for them, find the reason, if you can’t accept.
The science behind why we change:
You really want to know what makes people change? if you are a science student, i bet you would say its brain structure, age etc. etc. those are of course the reasons but in fact trauma, success, love, heartbreak, all these things literally rewire the brain’s emotional responses. According to neuroscience, your brain isn’t the same every 7 years.
New neural connections form. Old ones die like bonds in chemistry. Hormones shift. Life events create emotional rewiring. So if someone loved you loudly before but now loves you more quietly, it’s still love.
It’s just changed form, like in childhood we always use to say I love you to mama and papa and sometimes to our siblings too, but now when we are grown up, we don’t scream I love you mama and papa and bhai and baji, but still we do, its just the way of loving is switched.
And that’s okay!
What should one do when they change?
I know it’s hard. Watching someone change when you’re still holding on to who they used to be. But here’s what I’ve learned, slowly, painfully throughout my life and still learning:
Love without trying to control
We want them to be the same because that felt safe. But real love doesn’t trap, it gives space. You can love them and let them grow in their own way. Being possessive isn’t bad but being extra possessive, will make them feel caged, understand the difference, whether you are a friend or whatever.
Understand them instead of accusing
“You’ve changed a lot” sounds like blame. Try something softer, like “I miss how we used to talk,” or “Is everything okay?” This is they way that could change your perspective after application for sure, i bet. You’ll be surprised how differently people open up when they don’t feel attacked. They will discuss what they felt, faced and beared and we just regret sitting over there, saying i should try to understand at least but time flown till that moment, the thing left remain regression only.
Pause before reacting:
Not everything needs a reaction. Sometimes, they don’t even realize they’ve changed. Maybe life pushed them in ways you can’t see. So instead of jumping to conclusions, take a breath. Give it a little time. Sometimes not taking action is also an action.
Work on your own becoming:
I’ve realized that the more I connect with myself, the less other people’s changes feel like a threat. When one start focusing on oneself, he start to understand life, like if i talk about myself I’m 20yrs old, I had only a single best friend since last almost 9 yrs and we talk after weeks, every new meeting feel like the same time we wait in the morning in school, nothing changed. Its just we got busy, we grew up, we are still best friends, we still get crazy when we talk and everyone around talk shit about us because we used to be dam funny that moment, we still love each other, and this is life.
It’s not the end, It’s a new version of us:
In the end I would just say people will change. That’s not a threat, it’s just life doing what it always does.
We can either chase after old versions of them, or learn to meet them where they are now.
It hurts, yes of course. It’s confusing, sometimes.
But fighting change doesn’t stop it, it only drains us, maybe devalue us too. So maybe instead of asking, “Why did they change?” We start asking, “Who are they becoming?”
Because truth is — we all change. And maybe that’s not a loss.
Maybe it’s just growth in disguise!