Do we have to stay the way we are?

I recently was visiting a friend who is very lonely. She has a difficult time with her mom, and much of how she sees life and relates to others can be explained by this. But she is now an adult. She has the ability to leave that behind and to search out truth and reality for herself and to do a paradigm shift, so-to-speak, about how she relates to life and others. She lives for herself and her own comforts. A dead end street. But she doesn't see it. I ache for her.