Changes

The other day I was watching a comedy show. The wife and kids as well as the wife's brother and sister where waiting for the husband to come home. It was his birthday and they were waiting to surprise him with a cake and presents. Of course the husband knew but acted surprised anyways. His brother in law gave him tickets to a baseball game, his sister in law gave him a beer magazine subscription, his son gave him hand lotion, his two daughters gave him a knitted vest and his wife gave him a oil paint set.

He was happy with his in laws gifts, because he had told them what to buy for him, as for his wife and kids' gifts he pretended to like them but in fact did not. At night before bed the wife had set up his easel and paints and had wanted him to paint. He instead wanted to read his beer magazine.

The next day after work his small son who is only about 5 years of age, comes up to him and tells him he has another birthday present for daddy, that he had not picked out the hand cream, mommy had chosen the first gift. To which the father exclaims "my young son let me see it!", and so the boy pulls out a long stick with a bow attached, which he has found outside. Now the father loved this stick and carried it around with him everyday, which of course totally pisses off his wife, as he has not bothered about the other gifts. Finally she can take it no more and confronts him about the stick. "What is so great about that stick!" "What is wrong with the other gifts?" He then proceeds to tell her that the other gifts given to him and no doubt picked out by her, where her way of trying to change him, whereas the simple gift of the stick from his son did not require him to change and his son did not expect him to change. Of course in the end she finally gets it.

Now most of us at some point in our lives have tried to change the people we love. A wife will often try to change her husband, into the ideal man she wants, and when the man won't change trouble begins. You see people can change, but only if they want to. If you truly love a person you must except them for who they are, and not try and change them into someone you want them to be.

I leave off with a poem I read many years ago. I do not know who the author is, but I have always liked it.

Woman
was created from the rib of man
she was not made from his head
to top him
nor his feet
to be trampled on
She was made from his side
to be equal to him
from under his arm
to be protected by him
from near his heart
to be loved by him