The Load of Trying to Change People

 

I’m reading The Tenant of Wildfell Hall for the second time. I first read it in January 2025, and I’m reading it again this month, June 2026.

I want to crystallise the biggest lesson I’ve taken from it so far:

When we want something to be true, we will literally obliterate all the evidence trying to tell us otherwise.

There are more than 50 cognitive biases that I’ve read about—biases being mental distortions, habits, dispositions, or inclinations that cloud our judgement.

Some of the most common ones, which you can observe almost daily, include:

• The Dunning–Kruger Effect: When limited skill or knowledge causes people to overestimate their ability.

• The Halo Effect: When one standout trait distorts your judgement of the whole person.

• Hindsight Bias: When, after something happens, it suddenly feels as though it had been obvious all along.

And there are many more.

But today, I want to write about one particularly dangerous bias—one whose clutches I caught myself falling into yesterday:

Confirmation bias: The tendency to search for, interpret, and favour information that confirms your existing beliefs while ignoring contradictory evidence.

In The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, the main character, Helen, falls directly into this trap.

Before marrying a man whom nearly everyone around her has warned her about, she deliberately searches for, interprets, and favours information that confirms her hopes and desires. She obliterates the evidence showing her how dissipated, vulgar, unstable, sensual, and undisciplined this man is.

In fact, she convinces herself that she has been assigned by God to change him—to deliver him towards holy and virtuous thoughts. She sees him as a worthy challenge.

It is only once she is trapped in the clutches of married life that she glaringly realises her mortal error. But by then, it is too late—particularly in the 1800s, when divorce or living independently as a woman was rare, shunned, and deeply despised by society.

Likewise, yesterday, I caught myself hoping that a certain lady who plays an important role in our company would read more books.

Because if she did, she would become this and that. If she did, she would lead better, contribute better, and whatnot.

This was her response when I shared a book recommendation:

Her: I’ll try to read it.

Me: Cool—enjoy.

A few weeks later, I shared another book—the one I’m interpreting above.

Her: Thanks—I’ll try to read it.

Me: Explain the word “try” to me in regard to books. Don’t you like reading? So that I won’t keep sharing them 😂

Her: I just battle to find the time to read. I have a lot of duties to tend to, so I never get the time. I’m also very impatient—I like to finish things quickly, and a book requires patience.

There!

I knew I was in the clutches of confirmation bias when I saw her response as an opportunity to double down on my efforts to “convince her.”

To explain why reading books would be good for her. Why reading requires patience. How she could make time by waking up earlier. How she could develop the habit by reading for just ten minutes a day.

And all the rest of it…

But who wants to be told to wake up earlier by a colleague almost the same age as them?

Who wants to be told to read for ten minutes a day when they are convinced that their duties are already insurmountable?

Who wants to be told to become more patient because words knitted together by some dude out there will supposedly transform their mind and career?

I knew I was caught in confirmation bias because I was ignoring the evidence directly in front of me in favour of what I hoped to see and hear.

Thankfully, I caught myself.

And when I did, a huge load was lifted from my shoulders:

The load of trying to be the hero.

The load of meddling with other people’s choices, beliefs, and habits.

The load of trying to convince someone to want something they simply may not want.

The load of trying to change people.

My message to the reader is crystallised by another of the Brontë sisters, Charlotte Brontë, who wrote one of my favourite novels, Jane Eyre:

Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth?

Cognitive biases, on their own, may not qualify as laws and principles. But integrated with our cultivated values and beliefs — they form the robust internal code that guides better decisions in health, relationships, and career.

Catching the bias is the law in action.

Sam