One of life's hardest lessons to learn is that you can only change yourself.

Some people spend inordinate amounts of time and energy upset, angry, or frustrated by other people's thoughts and behaviors.

But to what end? You can rail against the rain or feel sanguine about the snow, but there's not a whole lot you can do about it. Why should we, by default, believe we can change another person's ― an independent, thinking self just like us ― behaviors and thoughts with just a few choice words? If you think about it for a minute, it sounds kind of ridiculous.

Yet we don't think about it when we have an emotional reaction to someone else's behavior or words. We say things like, "How could they say such a thing!" or "How can anyone be so rude!?" or "Don't they know how much they hurt me? Why do they do that?!"

We often react in this way because our emotions are a part of most people's innate decision-making skills. We react and respond emotionally to emotional needs of our own, rather than in a logical, rational manner. So when someone touches one of these emotional needs, we can respond in a way that may not make a whole lot of sense to an outside observer.

What you can do, just once, is to make a polite request for another to stop the behavior that you find frustrating, annoying or disturbing. But that's it, just once (or maybe twice, if you feel the person really didn't hear or understand the initial request). After that, you just become a nag and will be ignored. Repeating something over and over again doesn't suddenly make people more aware of themselves, it just makes them aware of how annoying you can be.

There's no magic to stopping trying to change other people's behavior. Catch your thoughts (by writing them down in a journal or blog, for instance) when you find yourself saying something like, "I wish she wouldn't do.." or "I can't believe he thinks that…" ― things like that. Making a note of it, mental or otherwise, allows you to pause your automatic thinking before you jump to the next step in your response (which is usually to say something to the person).

If you've already said something, now's the time to stop and go no further. Unless you're the other person's parent, they've probably already heard it and may have even tried stopping the behavior. Hearing it again isn't going to suddenly change their behavior.

People can spend weeks, months and in some cases years in psychotherapy working on changing their thoughts or behaviors. That's because such change often takes that long to understand, practice, and then implement. Behaviors most important to others are also likely behaviors that are important to ourselves and not readily changed, even if we wanted to. They sometimes are integrated part of another's personality or way of thinking about and looking at the entire world.

So save yourself some frustration today and try to learn to stop trying to change others. Focus instead on changing your own faults and you may find yourself living a happier and more peaceful life.

我们能改变的只有自己

人的一生中最难课程之一是意识到我们能改变的只能是自己。

有很多人花了大把的时间和精力因为他人的想法和行为而感到心烦、生气甚至泄气。

但是结果又如何呢？我们可以抱怨下雨，或者憧憬下雪，但是却什么都做不了。那我们凭什么因为其他人的行为及只用少数词语表达的观点而希望他们改变呢？他们和我们一样都是独立的、有自己的想法的。如果我们稍微这样想一下，就会觉得自己很可笑。

但是事实上当我们背他人的行为及言辞刺激时，往往不会考虑到这方面。我们只会抱怨"他们怎么可以这么说！""怎么可以这么无理！""难道他们不知道他们对我的伤害有多深吗？怎么可以这样做？！"

我们的反应往往是这样的，和大部分人一样，我们的情绪反应都是天生的。我们往往不会很有逻辑性、很理性而是从自己情感出发做出反应。所以当有人触及了这些情感需要中的某一方面时，我们往往不能从旁观者的角度做全面的考虑。

我们所能做的只是礼貌地请对方不要再做出我们认为会使我们泄气、厌烦或者不安的行为。但是仅仅只是这一次（当然如果我们觉得对方没有真正明白我们的初衷，2次3次也可以）。这次之后我们往往会被认为很烦人，然后被忽视。重复地做一些事情不会马上使人们更注意他们自己，而是使他们觉得我们是多么的烦人。

不存在改变他人言行的魔术。当我们对自己说"希望她不会......"或者"我简直不能相信他还这样想......"时，立刻抓住这些想法（立刻写在日记或者博客上）。在脑子中或者通过其他方法记下来，在进行下一步反应（一般来说会对对方说些什么）前允许我们暂停我们的理所当然的想法。

如果我们已经说了些什么，那么是该停止不要再继续发展下去了。除非我们是对方的父母，他们可能早已经听过这些，并可能已经尝试过这样的言行。再次听到这些，也不会马上改变他们的言行的。

人们会用上几个礼拜、几个月甚至几年时间接受心理治疗来改变自己的想法和言行。因为要改变往往需要很常时间去理解、练习，然后付诸实践。对他人来说很重要的言行可能对自己也同样重要，可能我们试着想要改变这些言行却没那么容易改变。

所以从现在开始请收起些泄气，试学着停止去改变他人。多注意改变自身的缺点，我们的生活会变得更美好更宁静。