How many times have you heard the phrase, "You can tell a lot about a person by the way they leave you?" Perhaps this is the first time, but I know I've heard it about a million times. It's plausible that you believe it, and it's equally possible that you do not.
But here's the thing: I wholeheartedly used to agree with this phrase. My faith in this statement caused me to question some things about myself, mainly because I (like the majority of the human population) would like to believe that I am a good person. I return my grandmother's calls, I do not wish ill upon those who have wronged me, and if you ask nicely, I will share my food. I try to maintain a positive attitude and I smile at strangers even when the gesture is not reciprocated--in fact, especially when the gesture is not reciprocated. Would this not make me a good person, or decent at the least?
Kantian ethics will say that what makes an action good is the will behind the action, as we cannot possibly control the consequences of our actions. While outcomes can sometimes be foreseen, more often than not, plot twists--to some degree--are involved.
What I want to know is--is it how we react in those raw, unpredictable moments that supposedly tips the scale of our humanity? In another's eyes, is one fleeting moment pivotal enough to immediately shape our character?
In reality? Nope. But, In their eyes? Likely.
In my humble opinion, the way a person leaves you only determines how you perceive that person feels or felt towards you, but it really tells you nothing about the person as a whole. You see, it would be unfair to use the end of whatever relationship you had with this person as an umbrella catch-all to define this person in all aspects of their personhood, simply because you only have this deep, firsthand knowledge of them through the constraints of your personal relationship.
In other words, you can't speak for the extraneous contexts in which this person exists (as a mother, brother, friend, aunt) because you don't experience these sides of this person firsthand. It may sound silly to point out, but you are only intelligible to things and people through your own eyes, and only in the contexts of how they personally affect you. We see people--and the world, for that matter--as we ourselves perceive them, which may or may not be how they actually are.
It may also help to consider the conditions under which people leave each other and acknowledge that our motives aren't always what they're perceived to be (good or bad). Especially from a psychological standpoint--people rarely, if ever, make decisions or act in ways that they themselves cannot justify as being "good" or necessary.
I'm not saying that certain actions can't reveal people's true colors, and I'm not saying that people can't be flat-out jerks sometimes. I'm just saying that there are copious other factors to consider before jumping to the conclusion that this person you previously cared about is some monstrous malignant tumor that has taken root in your heart and destroyed your psyche. I would even argue that thinking such terrible things about someone is more monstrous than whatever they did to you anyways.
