346: trust people to be themselves
We spend an enormous amount of energy trying to predict people. We analyze motives, rehash past actions, and play out scenarios in our heads, hoping to anticipate what someone will do next. It feels like preparation, but in reality it is misplaced focus. The truth is often simpler: people show us who they are through their actions. Trusting that reality frees us from the endless work of trying to decode them.
DMX once put it bluntly: “Always trust people to be themselves, and trust in the fact that you can see them well.” Maya Angelou echoed the same principle with different words: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” Both cut through the fog of appearances and promises. People’s words may sound convincing, but their consistent patterns of behavior reveal the truth of their character.
I’ve seen this firsthand in my coaching practice. Clients will come to me with passion in their voices, swearing they’ll do whatever it takes to reach their goals. Yet week after week, the habits they need to practice — nutrition, movement, consistency — are left undone. Their actions tell the story far more clearly than their words. The same lesson showed up in my personal life. I once kept trying to reconcile the words of someone close to me with the reality of how she behaved. I thought if I just pointed out the contradictions, if I proved that her actions didn’t align with her public image, she would change. But that was my ego speaking — wanting to be right, wanting to control the outcome, wanting the satisfaction of exposing the inconsistency. In truth, I was blind to the obvious because I didn’t want to accept that her actions revealed her true self.
This is why we so often resist believing what’s right in front of us. Ego gets in the way. We want to prove someone wrong, to reveal them to the world, or to ourselves. Control plays a role too. We want to fix people, to mold them into the version we believe they should be. Sometimes even our hope blinds us. We want someone to live up to their words because it would be easier for us if they did. In all of these cases, we spend our energy entangled in their contradictions, when the simpler and saner path is to accept their behavior at face value.
Ignoring this principle comes at a cost. We waste time and energy building stories to explain motives, and the more we invest emotionally, the deeper the disappointment when words don’t match actions. The only way out is detachment: stepping back, observing clearly, and finding liberation in seeing things as they are. The Stoics understood this centuries ago. Epictetus advised listening like a stone — unmoved, unaffected by insult or deception. Marcus Aurelius described it as being the rock that waves crash over, standing firm as the sea rages around it. The lesson is the same: don’t get angry at the snake for biting, nor the politician for lying. That’s what they do. Don’t let misplaced trust break your peace. Observe, accept, and respond accordingly.
Of course, people can change, but true change is far rarer than most of us want to believe. Change is not proven in apologies or declarations of intent. It is proven only through consistent, sustained action over time. In fact, the only way to be fully certain is to look back over the arc of a life and see how it was lived until the end. Sometimes dramatic events — failed relationships, health scares, personal losses — can shift someone’s trajectory. But until those shifts show themselves in steady, lived-out behavior, change is only an idea, not a reality. To treat it otherwise is to set ourselves up for disappointment.
The wisdom here is patience and vigilance. Trust people to be who they are now. If they evolve, you’ll see it in the patterns of their actions. Do not become attached to their promises. Do not invest in their words. Remain steady, like the rock on the shore, unmoved by the waves.
Life simplifies when you stop trying to outthink people and just trust them to be themselves. Observe with clarity. Accept without ego. Adjust without anger. Free your energy from the drama of contradiction, and put it back into what you can actually control: your own actions, your own character.