People Do Really Change

Okay, I'm being extremely honest right now. I swear I was already thinking about blogging about this before I read the comments on Middle-Aged Mormon Man's blog post.

Another little thing to get hung up on in a Frozen song - a line from the song, Fixer Upper. Here's the context: The lead female character meets the lead male character's family. The family assumes there's some romantic interest between the two of them, and when they're told otherwise, they ask the lead female character why she's not interested in the lead male character. Then they try to guess. They lyrically list a number of the lead male character's minor flaws, explaining "So, he's a bit of a fixer-upper, but this we're certain of, You can fix this fixer-upper up with a little bit of love!" The message of the song is that true love brings out the best in all of us. No one - as far as I know - has a problem with that part.

The line I (and some others) have a problem with comes when a woman who seems to be the matriarch of the family and/or the male lead's mother pulls the lead female character aside and says, "We're not saying you can change him, 'cause people don't really change. We're only saying that love's a force that's powerful and strange," and then she goes into the line about true love bringing out the best in people.

"People don't really change"? Really? I can kind of agree with that to a certain extent, but not only is change possible, it happens frequently. I might even go so far as to say that it happens all the time. In fact, President Thomas S. Monson shared the following story:

During the 1940s and 1950s, an American prison warden, Clinton Duffy, was well known for his efforts to rehabilitate the men in his prison. Said one critic, “You should know that leopards don’t change their spots!” 

Replied Warden Duffy, “You should know I don’t work with leopards. I work with men, and men change every day.”

So people can and do change, but there are still two reasons why I kind of agree with what the matriarch and/or mother said. One of them is because we can't change other people. We can teach and encourage others, we can tempt them and try to influence them, but if a change is to happen within someone, it has to come from them (with possibly some help from God, but I'll get to that later). If the lead female character had been romantically interested in the lead male character, but thought that he was a bit of a fixer-upper, as his family assumed, it would have been foolish for her to think that she could change him with "a little bit of love." He would need to make those changes himself. Granted, love can be a powerful motivator to spur on change, but it's still up to him to make the choice and the effort.

But the fact is that he could change, if he really wanted to, and so can each of us. Shortly before he died, President James E. Faust wrote:

Each one of us has been given the power to change his or her life. As part of the Lord’s great plan of happiness, we have individual agency to make decisions. We can decide to do better and to be better. In some ways all of us need to change; that is, some of us need to be more kind at home, less selfish, better listeners, and more considerate in the way we treat others. Some of us have habits that need to be changed, habits that harm us and others around us.

To quote Middle-Aged Mormon Man, "Change is not only possible – it is expected!" Change is essential to salvation. If "people don't really change," we're all in serious trouble.

Though, to be fair to the matriarch/mother, there are some things that we can't change. At least, not easily, and not by ourselves. The "natural man" is a collective term for the natural urges and tendencies that all humans share, and we're not going to get rid of those urges or tendencies any time soon, unless of course, a miracle occurs in our favor and/or we die. Speaking of this life only, and not expecting any miracles, there are some things that just aren't going to change.

However, miracles happen. The scriptures are filled with examples of people who have had a mighty change of heart, including Saul/Paul of the New Testament and the people of King Benjamin from the Book of Mormon. The mother/matriarch in Frozen may not have known about or believed in such miracles, but we do. And when miracles happen, anything is possible, including any kind of change.

But even without a miraculous, mighty change of heart, we can change our natures eventually. It may take years, decades, or even centuries or millennia, but we can do it. Thanks to the principle of eternal progression, we have that kind of time. If we just keep working at it and make a little bit of progress every day, in time we can work massive changes in even our very natures. By the time we're finished, we might not even recognize ourselves.

So, yes, people do really really change. People change every day, and we won't stop changing until long after we die. We can't change other people, and we can't always change everything we'd like to about ourselves (at least, not in one lifetime), but God can. With a little bit of faith, patience, and diligence, and maybe a few miracles here and there, anyone can change.