Gamble Your Rep?

This morning I was listening to The Breakfast Club and they posed the question: is once a ho always a ho a true statement? They took calls on the topic and it sounded like the audience was pretty split on the issue. I am, too. I’m not torn due to not knowing if someone can change their behavior, but more so because I don’t know if a person can change their reputation. So my answer depends a lot on if we’re just talking about a reputation or a person’s actions.

If this is purely about actions then I absolutely believe that a person can change. People do it all the time. Anyone can have an epiphany that leads them down a different path.

The problem is that just because you have new actions you may not get a new reputation to match- at least not right away. People are very critical of one another, and they won’t easily forget any indiscretions. Sometimes they will hold onto them and bring them up months or even years later. So even if the girl’s actions are no longer ho-ish she may have an extremely hard time changing her reputation.

The good thing is that as we adopt better habits and stick to them, people will begin to associate those things with us. So even if you don’t have a brand new rep you can at least update the old one with some good characteristics.

The moral of the story? Try not to do things that you aren’t proud of because they have a tendency to follow you. Whenever I hear people bring up things that I’ve done that embarrass me, I think of it as something that I probably shouldn’t have done. The flip side to this is also remembering not to put too much stock in what people think of you or say about you because some of them will find fault in anything that you do. Once a ho, always a ho? Maybe, maybe not. But don’t gamble with your reputation for the sake of finding out.

-Tiffany Vicks