Sometimes we come to the conclusion that, in fact, we never know a person completely.
There are cases where we are surprised by unexpected, rewarding and positive behaviors, and others in which they let us down, it seems that when it comes to human relationships, nothing can ever be given for granted. Is that really true?
- The poet John Donne said that no one is an island.
- Something complete in itself.
- We are all fragments.
- Parts of a continent where we are forced to live.
- And it is not easy.
So one thing we’d like to see is that the people we make a meaningful connection with always act the way we want and expect.
Most of us love predictability, knowing that if we expect anything from someone, it will come true, we like to think and assume that others will react in a certain way to certain circumstances, which will always be reliable and will remain so in time.
However, this variable is not always populated. This formula does not provide the expected result in all cases. Because sometimes people make mistakes.
Sometimes we witness unexpected reactions, responses and behaviors that not only surprise us, but also hurt us, all this makes us wonder: is this our mistake?Didn’t we see what that person really looked like?
We will try to answer these questions below
“Human beings are not born forever on the day mothers gave birth to them. It is life that often forces them to give birth. -Gabriel García Márquez-
The truth is, we never know a person completely.
Neither in depth nor with sufficient certainty to put us completely in place, to be able to dely into your mental universe and predict with absolute precision what you will do and what you will not do at all times.
Recognizing this should not be a negative or disturbing thing, human beings do not have absolute control over everything around us, and that is something we have to accept.
One of the reasons we never fully know a person is that we all have the ability to change, to take on new life goals, to evolve, to mature and even to change some of our personality traits.
This is certainly a very controversial topic, because there are people who consider that personality is fully formed in adulthood, and that from there only small changes can be made.
This process of change can mean abandoning certain links or even disappointing people close to you.
On our way to self-realization, it is almost inevitable not to surprise someone with our decisions (we can even surprise ourselves).
There are people who regret not having met someone completely, often hold a grudge against frustrated expectations, we all have the hopeless ability to make mistakes, to disappoint those who love us, if not as others expected.
However, there is another interesting aspect that we cannot set aside, sometimes we cannot get to know someone for real because we simply do not escape the profile that we once draw, eliminating from our attention what we do not want to see.
There are people who create an image of others of absolute perfection and unreality, they are people who see certain assumptions as immutable, who idealize and subjugate, who are unable to see beyond what they want to understand what the people around them really are like.
Sometimes we look, but we don’t see, and that brings us sooner or later to disappointment.
One aspect pointed out by Lewis R. Goldberg, a renowned expert in the field of human character, is that personality is not always an infallible and totally rigorous factor in predicting a person’s behavior throughout their lives.
There are small aspects that we don’t understand. There are unforeseen variables that are always out of our control.
Therefore, it is true that we never know 100% of the people we live with, so we can only trust, only to hope that the happiness we have now will not be lost.
Uncertainty must be tolerated, as we well know, in this world certainty is minimal and, therefore, it is best to enjoy the present and recognize, without resistance, that life is also change, ignorance and surprise.