I would love all my friends opinion on this. Is it POSSIBLE to change as a person or does the essence of who you are always stay the same. So you can change your view point on things, be more positive and that is it OR can you change it all. Sometimes I think one can totally change other times not.
A very good friend made the above comment on FB the other day.Then yesterday I came across an article - and a link within that article - by a fellow blogger that intrigued me even more.
There is not a lot I share in common with my partner. She's is not a morning person; I am up at 5 a.m. and don't need an alarm - and I am not a farmer by trade either. She says that must be some sort of sickness I got infected with during a visit to a friend's Grandmother's farm. She's not a neat freak; I am. When I get home and change I hang my jacket, get into my exercise or home clothes and put everything else into the wash, while she makes a pile on the ground or the back of a chair until the weekend. She's outgoing, carefree and loves to be the centre of attention in a crowd; I prefer to sit in a quiet corner and have some coffee. She's not very interested in reading but loves a good television series; I...well, let's put it this way I have read The Lord of the Rings 4 times, Frank Herbert's Dune 4 times, Hitler's Mien Kampf, most of Shakespeare's plays at least once many of them twice. She prefers action, I prefer order.
I could live with all of those differences but the one that drove me absolutely - and believe me when I tell you - absolutely batty...was how she left drawers half open. That's because in my sick mind, I reason that if you are gonna open the draw, get something from in it and then half close it, why not close it all the way?!? I mean, its a millisecond of your time. No?
For months I tried to change her and get her to close the drawers she opened. She loved me so much that she tried her hardest to remember, but it was not who she was; and so I continued to be frustrated. What made matters even worse was that now i was becoming critical of every other little difference. I guess it was a combination of seeing what this 'obsession' was turning me into and the negative effect it had on my partner that helped me come to a realization. She would beat herself up for forgetting to close a drawer, so much so that I did not have to say anything - my realization was simple this:
Neither she nor I needed to change!
It was so simple, it had to work. In fact it became the foundation for our happy marriage.
She was a open drawer person, I was an close drawer person - could there EVER be a better match up? From the day I realized this, I simply began to close the half open drawers.
My lesson was that I could always easily find a reason to negatively highlight our differences but it took a lot of thinking to celebrate our differences instead.
So to my friend's comment - we do not need to change but to celebrate the things that make us who we are. If one's partner cannot or will not join with us to celebrate ourselves, can they ever truly commit to a lifelong relationship?