Can a person change?

Lately, I've been reading a lot of posts on Facebook and hearing a lot of comments in movies and television shows about how people don't change. I beg to differ. I think people change who they are on a daily basis. There's no way that someone could go through an entire day of their life and not learn something new that is going to change the way they feel or think about a certain subject. Now, obviously, sometimes the change is not always a good change.

Just this morning I was looking back at the last few years of my life, since I graduated from college. I think the differences between who I was then and who I am now are extraordinary. Living in the real world and having to deal with the hardships of life have made me so much wiser. I think I have been through a lot in my 25 years. I've had to go through a lot bad experiences. Death in the family and with close friends, and struggles with money and actually working hard for the things you need in life.

But there were a lot of good experiences as well. Traveling to different places in the world (I need more), and overcoming the closed-minded ways of my immediate family, through more ways than one. I think Martin Luther King, Jr. said it best.

"An individual has not started living until he has risen above the narrow confines of individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity."

These are words that everyone should live by. If we do, the whole world can change and you can accept people for who they are and not who you think they should be.