Can anybody really change?

Sometimes I look brightly forward and think that I'm making my life better: slowly, maybe, but measurably.  (For example, here and here.)  Then other times I think that I'm feeding myself a load of bullshit.  (For example, here, here, here, here, and here ... Jesus, but I whine a lot!)  And its in the latter moods that I wonder, Can I really expect to change anything anyway?  Does anybody ever really change?

I suppose that I start off prejudiced against the idea that real change is possible, because all the time I was growing up I saw my Father go on about a thousand different diets.  Each one was announced with great fanfare: this was going to be the diet that finally got him thin; from now on he was going to eat only what this book allowed him to eat; and he was also going to start a strict exercise regimen at the same time.  Well, by the time the weekend rolled around he'd be eating something that wasn't allowed on the diet -- "Just this once, because it's a special occasion."  Then it would happen again, ... then again.  And the exercise regimen would last a couple of days before he just wouldn't be feeling well or couldn't get away this particular moment for one reason or another.  And pretty soon he'd be back to eating and sloth-ing the same way as always, until the next miracle diet came along.  He bought a lot of diet books over the years, along with a lot of books about how to get organized and get rid of clutter (two other things he has never yet succeeded in doing).  For what it's worth, this habit of backing off of any regimen whatever probably almost killed him a couple of months ago.  

So the upshot is that I grew up pretty jaded about the possibility of self-renewal or self-reform.  It's one of the reasons that I never, ever, ever want to admit that I'm on a diet: I assume that the very act of saying you are on a diet means you won't be by the time the weekend rolls around.  (See also this post here.)  The most I will let myself say is, "This is what I feel like eating right now."

What made me start thinking about this these days is that this week I am back to 2-3 drinks a night, a rate of alcohol consumption that would have been pretty normal even a few months ago (and would have constituted a very light evening back when I lived with Wife, as noted here or here).  But compared to the last month or two, when I have been drinking not at all ... or very little, at any rate ... it looks like an increase.  And I wonder: Am I just being my father's son?  Is this just like his stupid diets?  Am I going to spend the rest of my life unable to change anything fundamental?  When I'm eighty, am I going to be living just the way I do now, only with more deterioration?

I don't know.  Sometimes I think so, and it worries me.  (Then I remind myself that my meditation practice tells me not to worry, even about the parts of myself that I don't like. So maybe I can just drink up and be fine with it.)  But on the other hand, I do actually think long-term change is possible.  It's just not easy or obvious, and sometimes it takes time.

My prime example to justify this qualified optimism is that whenever I used to cook dinner it centered on some large piece of meat, and now my meals are almost totally vegetarian.  I'm not fanatical about this: if the boys are visiting me I'll cook meat some of the time because they like it.  And I'll cook some vegetarian meals too.  A mix.  But when it's just me -- unless there is a recipie that looks interesting that I want to try, my cooking is pretty much all vegetarian.

I scrolled back in this blog to find out how long ago I started making the change, and the earliest instance I could find for the word "vegetarian" was in October 2009.  At that time the change was just partly under way, and I described it as having started "a couple of months ago".  In posts a year later I find references to the change as largely complete.  So it took a while.  A few months at any rate, if not a year.  And there would have been back-and-forth then too.  But the tide was all in one direction, even if the waves washed in and out.

What helped me make the change?  I found I got more enjoyment from a wider variety of foods, and I felt freed by not having to cook the same five things over and over and over again.  So not only was it probably a good thing for my health, not only did it mean I give just a little less support to the cruelties of the food industry, but I liked the output.  And that was about the same time I was starting to free my mind in other ways from the prison I had built for myself out of my home life: through the affair with D, and generally through allowing myself to look at things as if they could possibly be different from how they just happened to be.  So I had enough positive reinforcement to put up with the griping I got from Wife (and to a lesser extent the boys).

This must be the key: change is possible if you get something out of it, if you enjoy it, if it brings you pleasure.  It's more or less the same insight that I had here: assume that you will always end up doing what you want to do; and then, based on accepting that fact, figure that if you want to change in such-and-such a way you must manipulate your situation so that those changes are what you really want to do.

How does that apply to drinking?  Or do I even want to change how much I drink, really?  I don't know right now.  Shit, I've been plunking slowly away at this post for almost three hours, looking up references and dithering shamelessly.  I have no idea what I "really want".

But I do know that I shouldn't worry about it.  Also I'm getting hungry for dinner.  Glass of wine?  Probably ... but still it's less than it used to be, by a good bit.  That's something.  Remember the tide.