Somebody told you people don't change

People don't change. Somebody older said it once with a shrug, and you kept it. Nobody sat you down and taught it. You picked it up the way you pick up an accent. A belief that arrives like that doesn't get checked. It just runs in the background, writing your ending before you've finished the middle.

It came from somewhere real. You've watched people clamp down on a habit and slide back, again and again. They changed the behavior and left everything underneath alone. Someone who still sees themselves as the one who does this is only holding on. Holding on has a shelf life. What you watched fail was a lid, not a change.

And you happen to own a counterexample. There's a date when you turned around, and you're reading this from the far side of it. That isn't a hope. It's a fact with a date on it. The cigarette hid behind that shrug and let it keep you in line for free. God doesn't make people new with a tighter lid. He makes the old thing stop fitting.

Put that date in your phone as a yearly event, the kind that pops up with a chime. Call it “The day I changed.” When the old line floats up again, skip the argument and point at the date. People do change. Here's when I did.