It’s one of those things that seems so obvious that we don’t think about it. But it’s also true: things don’t change unless something changes them. The rock that you see today will be the same forever, unless (as is likely to happen) wind, water, people, and other entropic forces eventually change that rock.

This is more useful as it comes closer to the realm of human life. Unlike rocks, our bodies are self-sustaining agents of change and chaos. We eat, drink, sleep, move, and breathe — processes of transformation. Our living body is always in flux. So we’re bad at noticing all the things that don’t really change.

The mental stuff — how I think, act, and react to the world — doesn’t change fast. The way that I feel about myself is unlikely to change without effort. If I see myself as a stupid fat ugly worthless person it’s very likely that, save for the interaction of a saintly other stepping into my personal psychology and helping me out of that darkness, I will stay convinced I am that until I die. We like to think that our minds are powerful agents of change — they can be — but they’re also habit-driven robots that tend to live in their own ruts.

Your ownership of your relationship to yourself is obvious; after all, you’re the only one in that relationship. And the something that changes a relationship with another I rely on or care about can be the other person. Because of that you’ll often find it even easier to believe in your impotent powerlessness. It’ll be easier for you to just say, “I guess this relationship can never work,” than to take responsiblity for changing it.

But the thing that’s true — about a relationship on the rocks, your negative and problematic self image, or the simple fact that your socks are currently scattered all around your house to the chagrin of all the people you live with — is that the facts of those situation won’t change without something changing them.

And that thing that changes them can be you. Even when others are involved. You can seek the counseling you, or that relationship, might need. You can work, on your own, to change it. You can go pick up your socks. You don’t have the ability to dictate the final outcome. But the closest and most reliable change-agent you’ll ever have control over is yourself.