I had a gag reflex to the thought of changing when I was growing up.
I blame Disney Channel. Every teen movie in the early 2000s climaxed with one high schooler looking at the other and saying, "You've changed," through clenched teeth and a weird amount of eyeliner. The word changed was never said as much as snarled and sounded like the grand daddy of all slurs to first-grade me. Changing was synonymous with betrayal. I never wanted to change.
And a part of me still feels this tug toward staying the same person I’ve always been. I keep in touch with a number of people that have known me for close to 20 years at this point. The idea of one of them someday looking me in the eye and saying, “You’ve changed,” while clenching their teeth and wearing a weird amount of eyeliner still terrifies me. I'm still a bit paranoid that every time I see them they're doing some sort of before-and-after analysis and looking for discrepancies.
But I heard something about the Beastie Boys a year or so ago that flipped the way I thought about changing. The group's debut album License to Ill wasn't known for being the most socially progressive or sophisticated piece of art ever conceived. It was downright childish in some areas. Right in the heart of the album is a track titled "Girls" that goes:
(Girls!) To do the dishes
(Girls!) To clean up my room
(Girls!) To do the laundry
(Girls!) And in the bathroom
Sure, it may have been parody. But it also might not have been. And the fact that I can't really tell you one way or the other is a data point in itself. We're talking about three 20-year-old boys that toured with a giant inflatable dick on their stage. Even if it was a parody, you can only take a parody so far before it just becomes you.
Flash forward twelve years when the group was recording their fifth album Hello Nasty and group member Adam Horowitz wrote a much more empathetic song about all the gross ways he saw men harassing women on the New York City subways. When an interviewer later called him a hypocrite for trying to write more progressive lyrics even when their debut album had been so immature and sexist, Horowitz said, "I'd rather be a hypocrite than the same person forever."
That was it. That was what I needed. That was what reframed change to me so it was no longer an act of betrayal or hypocrisy but bravery and integrity. I'm okay now if one of my old friends looks me in the eye and says, "You've changed," because quite frankly I don't want to be the same person I was in high school. I hope I've changed. I don't need to get a perfect score on the before-and-after test. I just need you to see the dotted line. As long as you can look back and connect the dots from who I was to who I've become and see how I got here, I'll feel just fine about changing.
After all, I'd rather be a hypocrite than the same person forever.
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