On Changing
Nobody changes. Except...
Xander Dunn, 31 December 2025
In my experience, no one changes. When I see a high school friend for the first time in a decade, she’s stuck in all the same ruts. I’ve never seen someone over the age of 22 significantly change their political beliefs. I've met many liars, and I’ve never seen one become honest. In a previous essay, I concluded “the best way to predict how someone will behave in the future is to look at how they’ve behaved in the past.” In a world of people who never change, that is always correct. But I submit to you the juror a counterexample:
On the morning of August 6th, 2019 I was lying on the floor of La Mision hotel in Paraguay staring at the ceiling silently. I was both hungover and had a cold. I felt terrible physically, mentally, and emotionally. Between my involuntary coughs, I took stock:
- The person I'm dating is treating me like shit.
- My boss at work is treating me like shit.
- Some of my friends are treating me like shit.
- My family are treating me like shit because I'm physically attracted to men.
- My health is in disarray, both short-term and long-term. My body is very unhappy.
- My personal finances are a mess. On the floor next to me was one of my Gucci bags and yet I didn't have enough money in my checking account to pay next month's rent.
I can’t emphasize how awful this moment was for me. It wasn’t Type 2 fun. It wasn’t just a day of bad health. It was purely, deeply awful. It was the single worst moment of my entire life, both before and since.
After enduring my misery for a couple of hours, I got up, threw all my stuff in my suitcase, took a cab to the airport, and bought the first flight back to the US. And then:
- I discarded the person I was dating. Never spoke to him again.
- I quit my job. Never spoke to that boss again.
- I blocked a handful of my friends. Never spoke to them again.
- I sent my family an ultimatum: You will never again say anything homophobic, nor will you ever again discuss religion with me, or I will never again speak to you until the day you die. They chose the former. In the 6 years since, we've had a pretty good relationship.
- I completely changed my diet and exercise. I haven’t eaten a single hot dog or a single French fry since. I became such a pain in the ass with my diet. My family protested the first few years I turned my nose up at all of their intricately prepared holiday sweets. Now they don’t even bother. Since 2019 I've gone to the gym roughly half of all days, and I'll continue to do so until I die.
- I completely stopped drinking alcohol. Today, 6 years later, the last time I had any alcohol of any kind in any amount was August 5th, 2019. When I go to a wine tasting in Napa or a Michelin restaurant, I just smell the wines. Trust is trivial to destroy and extremely difficult to build. In 2019, I told a college friend that I was no longer drinking. He didn’t say it out loud, but he didn’t believe me. I could see it in his face. Now, 5 years later, he doubts nothing I say. I can see it in his face.
- I sold all of the expensive junk I didn't need. I moved out of my apartment into one less than half the size and well below my means. Today, the apartment I live in is the least expensive apartment I’ve ever had in San Francisco, and my finances have never been better.
When I began my journey I read the book Atomic Habits, and this story stuck with me: During the Vietnam War, many US soldiers became addicted to heroin while in Vietnam. US psychologists were bracing for an onslaught of heroin addicts returning from the war. But it didn't happen. Nearly all of the soldiers addicted to heroin in Vietnam never again used heroin after returning to the US. How? The research narrowed in on environment. They found that habits were easiest to break or form when a person's environment changed. The soldiers returning had completely, radically different environments. Different people, different cities, different food, different challenges. Different everything. As a result, they were dramatically more likely to leave behind old habits, even physical addictions, and form new habits. This concept was extremely useful to me. I threw out 100% of my environment so that I could form new habits. I changed my clothes, food, home, job, friends, furniture, music. Everything changed, and as a result, I persistently changed. All of my changes feel effortless now. I can't imagine returning to any of my prior habits. If a heroin-addicted, war-traumatized soldier can give up heroin cold turkey, then you can change too.
I think the ability to significantly change requires two things:
- A belief in free will. I have some very smart friends who don’t believe in free will and I’ve never seen one of them make any significant positive change. They are stoned by the Gorgon of logic. I take free will as an axiom. I immediately exit any conversation on free will. I just don’t care. Studies show that people who believe they have free will are happier. It doesn’t matter if they actually have free will, merely that they believe they have free will. That’s the sound of the snakes on the Gorgon’s head eating themselves.
- The ability to introspect. If you can't take stock and hold your internal locus of control accountable, then it's not possible to move to a new locus. Personally I believe the ability to introspect is either present at birth or not. But very few people who are unable to introspect would make it this far in an essay on changing.
One of my favorite videos around this time was Cyan Banister’s origin talk. I can’t recommend it enough. Pick yourself up off the floor. Play the game. You are the creator of 100% of your problems. Find whatever narratives aren't helpful and annihilate them with extreme prejudice. Just do it. Shut the fuck up and just fucking do it. There is no tomorrow. There is only now.