On Remaining Unchanged

Young people leaving home for new experiences, new activities, are often given to assuring those they leave behind that they will remain unchanged—unchanged in their thoughts, in their feelings, in their actions and their attitudes. And they believe it! Youth are confident in their own strength; and to any kind of caution they are likely to say, “Why shouldn’t we? It won’t hurt us. It won’t change us.” And they wonder why parents and others whom they are leaving are doubtful and concerned—they wonder, perhaps because they have not yet learned or because they have failed to remember that we all tend to be changed and modified both by people and by places. In other words, we all respond in some way or other to our environment. This is so whether we choose it to be so or not, and it is quite useless to say: “I am going to partake of this, but I am not going to be affected by it.” A person of strong will, living with undesirable influences, may succeed in maintaining his principles and ideals, his standards of value, his beliefs, but he is changed nevertheless, even if only by the very act of resistance. Resistance to a given set of conditions has its effect upon us, even as failure to resist has its effect—although not in the same way. Knowing this, it is natural for the counselors of youth to be concerned about the influences that enter their lives, about the company they keep, about the things they see and hear, about the ideals that are set before them, about the friendships they form. Indeed, it is not only a natural inclination but also an obligation of which parents may not rightly relieve themselves. And to those who are young we say—and to all others who need such reminder: Don’t make the mistake of supposing that a new experience of a new association won’t change you. We are changed, sometimes favorably, sometimes unfavorably, but always we are changed by the company we keep, by the friends we make, by everything we see or touch, or think, by all we experience—both as places and people—and also as to our own thoughts. Indeed, change is the essence of life itself—eternal change. But danger lies in supposing that we can be exposed to wrong influences and not be changed. This, youth must remember when those who are more seasoned caution them concerning questionable places, questionable company, and questionable conduct.