In the movie Before Sunset, Jesse told Celine a research conducted by some American sociologist. Their finding? Old habit die hard. Or in Jesse’s words: if you are a happy, jovial person, you will still be a happy jovial person, 6 months after you lost your legs in a car accident; if you are a bitter, obnoxious person, you will still be as bitter and obnoxious as ever even if you won a lottery.
The point is, after you have taken in the changes in the enviornment or circumstances that life has thrown upon you, you are pretty much back to the same old you. So much for sudden enlightenment.
Yet we often hear the stories of people who were forever transformed by their experience. The experience that shook their core, and changed the way they look at and live their life completely.
We were told that we could be whoever and whatever we want. We were told that the society we live in make us what we are. We were told that life is a subsequence of compromises. We were told asking “What I want” is the most responsible way to live. We live in contradictions and opposites.
I guess what I am saying is, I would really like to change the way I live my life. But the older we get, the harder to change. We lose our free spirits to old habits.
March 8, 2010 at 4:10 am
I prefer to think that its not society that determines who we are, but we mix in the crowds determined by who we are. Yes its easy to live the easiest way, which is to follow the nearest crowd, but human nature is we have the choice