And each in your season returns and returns, and is always the same

I think that one of the worst ways you can treat a person is to assume that they haven't, and never will, and cannot change. It's terrible.

People CAN change. You can turn your heart around, start afresh, repent, become a better person. That's WHY we're here: to become better. So assuming that because of someone's past misdeeds...or indeed past triumphs, they are the same person that they were then, is ridiculously insulting.

I know I've changed in the past year or so, and before then too. So if a person I was very close to a year ago, or eighteen months ago (ahem Allen) were to think I'm the same girl now as I was then, they would be very much mistaken.

I try to apply that to my life: knowing that I've changed, and that other people can change too. This means that I don't let my associations with people in the past affect how I treat them now. That doesn't mean I'm overly naive and let myself be taken advantage of over and over again, but that I try to realize that people make mistakes, and if I bring them up, they'll never be able to feel that they've been forgiven.

I'm not perfect at it...I still judge people a lot, but as with everything else in my life, it's a work in progress. And it's a star. We can change! We can be something better today than we were yesterday! We can remold the person we were and escape from the mistakes of the past (so far as our consequences will let us). We can become a new man. Or woman. You catch my drift.

Stars, Javert in Les Miserables