What Makes People Change? -SAT Essay 1

Change has scared many people for ages. It has a tendency to bring out the worst or the best in people. It makes some feel stronger, while it breaks others involved. Yet what drives the change? Why would anyone promote something that would harm another human being? It seems illogical to most parties involved except the one implementing the change. Even then, the
"leader" isn't always sure.

My friend always consults me before she gets a haircut. It's a simple change that has the ability to scare many people for very little reason. When she comes to me I always ask her why she must get her haircut-the answer is always based on the same couple points; "this person said this other person said my hair was old," "I hear the guy i like likes blond girls with purple hair stripes." Like a good friend I must question her sanity. Can other people's opinions really effect the choices we make so easily? Yet, if "all change comes from within," this can't be so. Yet other people typically affect our choices more frequently than we our own. When I was in sixth grade, one of my classmates insulted my brand new white sneakers with pink shoe laces- i was devastated after a day of non-stop teasing. I never again wore those shoes.

My father has back problems, he fell while skiing one time at Wachusett, yet he is willing to change his sleeping situation whenever his parents come. This could potentially really hurt his back, yet for some reason he always moves, and our couch is no king sized bed. He feels so guilty and can't not move. It seems trivial, but this man makes my mother switch sides of the bed when his side becomes to sunken in and could potentially hurt his back. A simple guilt trip he sends himself on, although it isn't necessary. It can easily change any one's opinion. In "The Princess" by Lori Wick, Prince Nikolai ends up changing his entire schedule to fit around that of his new arranged wife after he didn't even recognize her one morning. It also seems trivial, yet guilt motivates people just as much, it is self insulting. Sometimes our worst enemy is ourselves.
We are motivated by everything around us, and within us.

Motivation can come from all different places, but we let others affect how we act very often, and change our looks, our house, our attitude and other attributes because people find fault. Yet, when we are telling ourselves, you look fat in that dress, you change your looks, when you say, I can't believe I acted so politely to that jerk, you change the way you react to people. It is impossible to say why we allow these ideas to implant themselves into our heads, yet we allow it. Maybe we are motivated by a hope for a strength that shows when we go through even the smallest of changes. When we are insecure, we hope to find something that will help us to be rid of this feeling. Therefore change is motivated from a hidden want for control over our lives, and volentary insecurity is safer than to be caught off guard.