Can you change others?

Everyone would like to see their friends and loved ones more serene and witness them overcome shyness or arrogance. We want to see them acquire courage or perhaps become a little more cautious, more imaginative or more rational, depending on the limits and talents. Just like everyone would like to overcome their own faults, the ones that irritate others and make us suffer, so it seems that everyone would like to help others to do the same. Often it is easier to see the limits of others than to see our own, and therefore the desire to help others overcome limitations is sometimes even greater than the desire to overcome our own!
Is it possible to help others change? In some ways, yes, for others, not so much. Every human being is responsible for themselves and has the right and duty to take care of their own behavior. There are behaviors that can definitely damage others; violence, being presumptuous, judging attitudes and so on, and there are even attitudes that can harm ourselves such as renunciation, pessimism, and insecurity. Everyone is responsible for themselves and is responsible for modifying one’s own limitations and transforming them into something more harmonious and useful.

Choose to accept

If we look at the problem from this point of view, it is not always possible to help others and in some ways, it is not even fair, because it would mean replacing them. The change in each person takes place when the person chooses it or when, in the face of events that require a change, they allow it. In other words, the person can change voluntarily if they are determined, for example, to become more enterprising or overcome one’s own laziness.
A change happens when the person agrees, and if someone tries to change someone else’s way of being, not only do they act like a bully, but they will only be wasting their time. Who can decide what is good for the other? Even when it may seem obvious what it is, it is not up to us to decide.

Like the rocks of a river

Is everyone alone in self-transformation? We don’t think so. According to the thought of Falco Tarassaco and in the experience of the Damanhurians, the relationship with others is fundamental for one’s own growth. Falco used this example: we are all river pebbles immersed in a stream of water, which represents life. The flow of the current causes the pebbles to rub against each other, and in doing so they get more round, rounding off their edges, they become smooth and mutually modify one another.
This means that life is the great teacher and we, as classmates, can help each other learn the lessons. This is important: nobody can be someone else’s teacher but we are all partners in the same course. So yes, of course, we can help each other!
To do this, we can learn to be a mirror for others, to propose virtuous behavior and positive habits. We can also point out to the others that there are behaviors that could be changed, for the sake of themselves and others. However, we must also remember that when we suggest something to someone else, we take on the responsibility to testify that our suggestion is adequate, that is, to set a good example.

Who is helping you?

In this way, not only will we have helped others to change but through this process, we will also have supported our own transformation, because we will be even more committed to being better versions of ourselves.
Let’s go back to the initial question: is it possible to change others? The answer is that it is not possible, or even ethical, to decide for them but it is possible to help them in the changes that they have chosen, and in those who wish to work on themselves. Our help can make a big difference and can be the element that finally makes concrete what was until then only a wish.

Our help is love, friendship, and solidarity.
Also a bit of observation.