Photo by Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash

‘Expectation’ is the demon housed in our souls. Imagine, how life would have been without expectations. The wife has no expectations from the husband and vis-à-vis, children have no expectations from the parents and vis-à-vis, and they all live happily, thereafter.

Unfortunately, that’s not true. It’s a utopia.

What if we knew, precisely, what to expect from a person, who’s part of our life?

That would have been great!

So, let’s deal with it, i.e. knowing what to expect from people.

There are two elements in a person that guide his/her words and actions:

1. Nature
2. Character

And every human being is born with these two elements and dies with them.

They are not genetically transmitted but could be influenced by the environment. Studies with twins reared apart have revealed it.

What is the ‘nature’ of a person?

To me, nature is a person’s ‘visible’ behavior. It is something that people can see while interacting with the person. For example, a person could be polite, soft-spoken, full of etiquette, hostile, short-tempered, abusive, etc.

A person is largely known by his/her ‘nature’, which is the visible element that people ‘see’ while interacting with him/her.

We keep saying, ‘So-and-so is a very polite man’. Or ‘so-and-so is a very short-tempered person’. And so on.

Nature is largely flexible among most of us. We would ‘behave’ differently in different situations. For instance, we may behave politely with a stranger but may become abusive while with friends.

We are likely to be in our best etiquette when we meet on our first date or face an interview. However, we are only exposed to our ‘real nature’ in subsequent meetings, in case the earlier was faked.

So, to say, nature is manipulative.

Nature may change momentarily in situations that trigger anger, leading to the person abandoning his etiquette.

However, when we come closer to a person, we can easily come to know his/her actual nature, that he/she was born with. You know the person best if you are staying with him/her. You know his/her primary (usual), and secondary (situational) nature. You also understand how he/she will ‘react’ (in terms of words and actions) in different situations (normal and abnormal).

This proves beyond doubt how you can ‘expect’ a person to react in a situation, knowing his/her nature.

This is one part of the story.

What is the character of a person?

Character, unlike nature, is the angel or the devil hidden inside us.

Character is perhaps the intangible elements of kindness, selflessness, etc. Contrarily, it could be selfishness, ruthlessness, narcist, etc.

A person could be very polite but could be selfish.

A person could be extremely rude but could be very kindhearted as well.

A person may have a smiling face but could be ruthless.

There could be a numerous example of a combination of nature and character that would finally complete the man, woman, or child.

However, it is not easy to gauge the character of a person unless we know him/her well. Once you know him/her closely enough, rest is easy.

It’s the combination of nature and character of a person that dictates his/her words and actions.