Many of us have noticed that people around us in different circumstances behave differently. To some extent, we find this disturbing considering that each of us needs the people we know to be somewhat constant for safety and stability. Because we have built our lives and friendships starting from a specific set of experiences, when the people around us change a lot we no longer feel safe. From here different questions arise in our minds, such as: is this person still trustworthy? Is it still safe to be around him or her? Can I invite this person into my home? and so on.
Where does the need for a stable system come from?
By nature, the human being, like other beings, is oriented towards survival. As long as any change can come with a good or a bad impact, the problem is the following: as long as there is the possibility that a change will bring bad outcomes most of us will avoid change. Naturally, each of us has in the genetic code a programmed sequence dedicated to safety, which includes also a general tendency to avoid uncertainties, therefore choosing the safe way – the stable, known things, the old ways of doing something, etc.
The problem of stability
Stable things have always served as a reference to know reality; they are absolutely necessary to advance in personal and professional life with confidence, to create, and develop in general as a society. But this stability comes with a price. The former civilizations, for example, paid with movement limitations, restrictions in communication, restricted interaction between cultures, etc. Previous civilizations lived largely isolated from each other, thus preventing factors such as communication from changing people’s behavior.
But, to understand better what I am talking about, I will give you the example of the European countries before the EU and the insertion of technology in the everyday life of people all over the world. Before 1957 the European states had clear borders, which only seriously authorized people could cross. This means that people mostly lived the same way for centuries and that changes only happened when other superpowers took over the lead.
At the level of the common man, this translated into the following: our great-grandmothers did not eat Chinese food because they did not hear of it; they did not have communication methods that could serve as a source of change.
Change and normality
You will find in my book “The new social Reality of the Europeans: a constructivist view over Europeanization” a complex analysis of the change in the European lifestyle after the Second World War. Broadly speaking, if I were to describe the European lifestyle in the 21st century, then I would say that it is about accepting change as a new lifestyle.
Just as institutions are made to represent society, the European Union is an enormous human construct meant to face social needs after the Second World War, meaning adapting its policies, rules, laws, and principles to a permanently changing world.
The source of change
Although I mentioned above that change has become a new lifestyle, I want you to understand that I am referring to two types of change: a natural change that comes from social interaction in the new communication environment (the online one) where people from different sides of the world communicate and transmit the best practices, ideas, and exchange experiences, thus influencing the behavior of anyone involved in the process. And the second type, is the “top-down” change, meaning a change whose source is the national institutions that trigger the change wave towards the society. This change comes as a result of the analysis of social needs, new trends, and crises that peoples face and is applied through new laws and policies.
Multiple roles
Starting from this new lifestyle, based on change, people develop in a different way and change.
Naturally, each of us already has several roles that we play in our everyday life, and we do this instinctively. Among these roles, I would mention that of a child that we have in our relationship with our parents (a role that is permanently adapted to the degree of development and evolution of us and our parents); that of a schoolmate (which is usually put on hold once we finish school because we don’t see each other anymore and we don’t have the opportunity to change our opinions and images about each other); that of a co-worker (a role that changes depending on our evolution at the job, our ability to grow, etc.); the role of a parent (which varies from person to person depending on life experiences and personal life principles); the role of a friend, etc.
The things that we say in the first few interactions with the people we meet for the first time will broadly establish the relationship we will have with them. It is important not to forget the context in which we are. The environment we are in will influence the type of relationship we will establish. For this reason, I recommend to people who decide to meet someone for the first time, to run a potential scenario about how this interaction will go in the chosen meeting place, to see if they want the relationship between them to be built based on judgments made in that environment.
Also regarding the environment in which we find ourselves and the type of interaction, we must evaluate whether it is necessary to change our behavior with those we know from other circumstances. For example, if we see a classmate that we haven’t seen since we were at school, and we meet him in the environment in which he works, many of us make the mistake of behaving with him through the prism of the relationship we have built in the school. Yet, in this environment, the school colleague is not appropriate; you do not behave with an adult in the same way as with a teenager, and you do not judge a grown man for the things he did when he was a child.
What do we observe?
We often notice that people we know are different. However, this is not necessarily a cause for concern, and let me explain why.
It is normal for a man who is the administrator of a business to have a behavior towards his employees, a different behavior towards his mother, a completely different behavior towards his children, and a different behavior towards peers in the business field.
Also here we must not exclude the fact that people really change. We must not expect a school friend to be the same when he will be 40 y.o. considering that he had a life that changed him in one way or another. When people have access to information, when they have various social networks to communicate with – change is inevitable. We become what we hear, and what we see. We change because that’s what the exchange of information does. You can’t hear a different food recipe and not try to make it, or you can’t introduce words from other languages into your dialect if you often talk to people in other languages.
Conclusions
Old proverbs blamed people with many faces, although we all have a few. What must be remembered, however, is that we have to be aware of this and make the difference between natural roles and superficial roles created only for a better image.
In the age of technology, creating fake personal profiles, starting from the selection of some characteristics that we embrace and hiding others, is a common thing, because many of us want the world to see the best version of us, even if we are not always like that. On the other hand, by doing this we erase the personal imprint because most of the time what we consider to be a defect is actually a special thing that makes us unique.