I Am Not the Same Person I Was Yesterday

The prompt for today:

Can People Change?

This, in brief, is answered with a resounding, "Yes!"
However, as we all know, it is not always as simple as that. Therefore, for your delectation and delight, here is my long-winded answer.

If I didn't believe that people could change then I would be living in quite a miserable state of being. If I were the same person I was just a few years ago, naive to the point of putting myself in danger, I wouldn't be able to live the life I have managed to happen upon now. As a single young woman with lack of monetary fortune, I believe that one must progress and change from how she has lived in the comfort of her parents' abode or be eaten up by the poor society and association of wicked men.
However, with the changes I have made in my life and approach to the world, I have tried to retain those good graces which I was brought up with to have a general politeness for those I come into contact with as well as just being kind. Be empathetic, compassionate, and open to new or unpopular thoughts and opinions without judging harshly upon the first meeting.

But really what question should really be asked is whether people want to change. Some people I have come into contact with quite frankly seem to be just fine the way they are (whether they are naturally like that or if they had many moments of change BEFORE our acquaintance--I couldn't rightly say) but then there are others that I know and it sickens me to know they have not changed even over 5 years time to become better than they were.
Some have given up on ever changing. Others are too proud of their current state.

I had the rare opportunity to get in contact with a person that I hadn't spoken to in over 4 years just the other day. He was still as handsome in face as the last day I saw him and it gladdened me to know that he seemed to be in good health and that he might actually care to know what had been going on in my life since our abrupt goodbye.
Fortunately, it took very little time for him to reveal that he was still the same as before.
A wolf seeking to steal the virtue of women through manipulation and a profound sense of wickedness. The goals he had spoken of to me in the day of my deepest naivety to turn his life around, to become worthy of the Priesthood, to have a family and wife who could be proud of him had been lies--the lies he knew would persuade my mind most readily to spending time filled with poison with him in the hopes of being his heroine, the rescuer of his heart.
His pride roiled off of the words he wrote in waves--for since he hadn't changed, he was more than ready to assume that I was the same girl he left heartbroken for almost giving him everything--when in reality he could never dream to deserve it in the eternal timeline.
Perhaps I had given too much in the way of hope that he might "come to see the error of his ways" and apologize to the child he had met and poisoned with his words and notions of the way the world was in his eyes. And perhaps he gave too little credit to the child who grew up to become a woman.

But there it is, my friends. People can change. I have changed. I have seen my friends and acquaintances and family change. But I have also seen those who refuse to change. What more can be said?

Love,
Me