Friday, August 2, 2013

I Make Me Want To Be a Better Man, Not You

The other day I was watching the movie "As Good as It Gets" with Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt. There is a scene in the movie where Nicholson says to Helen Hunt "you make me want to be a better man.” I sat there nodding in agreement at the statement at first, but then I really began to think about it. Then I realized that although it may be one of the coldest lines a man could ever say to a woman, it just may be one of the most BS statements that we can make about our own self inventory and growth.  Many of us believe that a certain person will make us want to be a certain way or live a “good” life, or change and want to settle down, but that may be the farthest thing from the truth. The idea of the right man or woman is NOT going to make you be a better person, but it is only half of the story. How many times have we heard someone say ”she made me want to be a better man”?

Comments like this have been a pinnacle for some people to want to take their life in a different direction. People will say they won’t won’t be into drugs, won't be into a lot of women or men, won't be filled with anger, etc. And many people do find someone who makes things click in their lives. While I am not saying that people can not influence your life for the better, there has to be a point where a person has to grow ON THEIR OWN to be a different type of person. Are you even working to become a better person or waiting for someone to inspire you? When people propagate that a person has to come into their life and change them, it takes away all the personal accountability and personal development of that singular person. It makes it a cop-out situation where someone can always say “I mean no one has come into my life to want me to change my life.” We are all effected by those around us for good or bad, but there has to be change or desire to change oneself. Only YOU can make you better. A man or woman can only complement you and accentuate you, but the only way that you can become a better person is by taking self accountability and battling with the biggest enemy you have: YOURSELF. If you are changing for the sake of someone else, you are not evolving. 

Love is the most powerful thing in the world and it can change the world we see around us dramatically, but sometimes it doesn’t matter if we see all the love around us if we don’t embrace it ourselves. There isn’t a magical person who is going to be around and love us and then poof we want to be a better person. Like I have said before, a person will never be able to accept love until they love themselves. Yes a person can make us change, but the biggest point is that we understand that we need to make for us first. So if you think becoming a better is determined by meeting the right person, I’m sorry to tell you that you'll probably be waiting for this person to come into your life until a cow can actually jump over the moon.

What will the change be for if it's just for the other person? What if the person who made you change somehow fails you? Will you continue to be the better person? Is it all contingent on them? Will you go back to being that other person just because the person you believed in failed you? We all make changes in relationships for the better (sometimes for the worse) and it can be a beautiful thing, but to put everything into the belief that only a person can change your life? The change comes first from within yourself, and is fueled through the relationship to take who you are to higher heights. Someone can love you and make you better, BUT at the end of the day you have to want to be better regardless of how much the other person may want you to. That’s the only way one can evolve, and as a bastard turned right, it's a lesson I'm learning everyday...


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