An orientation…

When someone tells you something is an orientation they’re telling you something fundamental. They’re telling you something is:

1. Innate — It’s a feature. What they are telling you is this thing is as much a part of them as their eye color.

1. Lifelong — Orientations are unplanned. They just are, for an individual, like gravity. Orientations can change, people change, but most often do not change orientations.  People  evolve and there is fluidity, but don’t expect evolution or fluidity. The perception of change is most often people going through a process (or processes) of self discovery.

1. Unchangeable — Lot’s of people have tried to change orientations. Through will people can change behavior, but not their nature. People can do what they will but cannot will what they will. When fluidity occasionally happens, it is not an act of will.

Orientations are not (just) about what people do, it's about who they are. When people tell you who they are, listen.

Imagine they’re like Popeye saying, “I am what I am, and that's all that I am.”