Hi, today I would like to share about the interesting topic, namely "Someone doesn't change not because one doesn't can", the reason why I choose that topic because there's something important I want develop through your life journey, the question about why someone finds it difficult to change their destiny often revolve around a classic dilemma: is the failure purely due to external factors, or is it because the individual simply "doesn't want" or is reluctant to make changes?
Perspectives from a psychological and philosophical perspective provide a deeper understanding that the phrase "not wanting to change" is rarely simply laziness or stubbornness. Behind this reluctance lies a complex cognitive, emotional, and existential layer.
1. Psychological Perspective
In modern psychology, the difficulty of changing destiny associated with a reluctance to change can be explained through several clinical and cognitive approaches:
*Psychological Resistance and the Comfort Zone:
The human brain is biologically designed to conserve energy and seek security. The comfort zone, while not ideal or miserable, provides predictability. Change brings uncertainty, which the amygdala (the brain's fear center) often interprets as a threat. As a result, individuals prefer to endure familiar suffering rather than risk stepping into the unknown.
*Learned Helplessness:
This concept, popularized by psychologist Martin Seligman, describes a condition in which someone who has repeatedly faced failure, trauma, or oppressive situations in the past comes to believe that no matter what they do, no matter what they do, it will change the outcome. Their "unwillingness" to change is actually a form of deep-rooted hopelessness—they have stopped believing that their efforts have any impact.
*Cognitive Biases and Mental Blocks:
Defense mechanisms often operate unconsciously. A person may experience cognitive dissonance, where they lament their fate but, at the same time, rationalize their actions to avoid breaking out of old patterns. Chronic procrastination and a fixed mindset also lead a person to view limitations as a permanent fate rather than something that can be worked around.
2. Philosophical Perspective
From a philosophical perspective, the issue of "fate and will" has been studied in depth through various schools of thought:
*Existentialism (Jean-Paul Sartre & Albert Camus):
Existentialism holds the principle that "existence precedes essence"—humans exist first, and then define themselves through their choices. Sartre stated that humans are condemned to be free. When someone finds it difficult to change their fate but blames circumstances, in the existentialist view, that person often falls into what is called *bad faith* (a point of denial of one's own freedom). They deliberately abdicate responsibility for their lives and surrender to external determinism.
*Stoicism (Epictetus & Seneca):
The Stoics divided the world into two things: what we can control and what we cannot. External fate (such as family background or initial economic circumstances) is often beyond our control. However, our responses, perceptions, and actions are completely within our control. From this perspective, the difficulty of changing one's destiny occurs when one misdirects one's energy—they lament what is beyond their control (fate) while ignoring the only thing they can change (their own habits and character).
*Determinism vs. Free Will:
A classic philosophical debate questions the extent to which humans truly possess free will. Determinism argues that human actions are shaped by a chain of past causes, genetics, and social environment. If someone feels unwilling or unable to change, this school views it as a product of constraining structural and psychological conditions, not simply personal moral weakness.
Conclusion
The assertion that someone finds it difficult to change their destiny because they "don't want to change" is a simplification. Psychology views this reluctance as the result of fear, past trauma (learned helplessness), and mental defense mechanisms. Meanwhile, philosophy views it as a struggle between the radical human freedom to choose (existentialism) and the shackles of factors beyond our control (determinism).
True change often begins not with the moral compulsion to "just want to," but with the courage to dismantle the deepest psychological barriers and take back responsibility for the things that can still be controlled.