I'm pretty sure this is going to both shed some light on me as well as attempt to convey some insight for you. I'm not sure how widespread it is (but then again, with devices like the Internet, it's impossible to tell if something is the way it is because more people actually believe it or because the people who believe are just the loudest), but it seems there's a general consensus that any perceived negative trait in a person isn't actually a trait, but just a one time moment of a bad decision.
Sure, people make mistakes all the time; I know for a fact you're going to make a ton of mistakes as you grow up (as every human being does). I'm fairly confident you're going to, albeit hopefully not for too long, make mistakes that others have made; "A fool learns from his own mistakes, a wise man learns from the mistakes of other." I believe the "fool" in that quote is someone whose only mistake was not heading the warning of others; that quote isn't saying if you make your own "original" mistake, you're a fool. The point is, you're going to make mistakes, and at first you'll make mistakes that have been made by countless others since humans have existed; none of that makes you, or other people, a bad person.
But at what point do these bad decisions indicate a personality or character trait? Someone who invests money in a get-rich-quick scheme, bad decision; someone who does that annually, bad person. Someone who does it twice in their life... still just bad decisions? Someone who does it once every five years, are they a bad person yet? I think a key aspect that people now-a-days look at is simply the decision itself and make a judgement based on that (I'll talk about "judging" later, either in the post or a following one); somehow we seem to have forgotten (or maybe people didn't do this in general, ever) to look at the governing traits that lead to that decision.
Let's take that person who got in a get-rich-quick scheme, lost his money, and now his family is in deep doo doo; he only did this once, learned his lesson, never did it again. There's not a character trait of "Oh, he's a get-rich-quick schemer," there's a character trait of someone who wants to make big gains with little effort, even at the cost of others. This particular time it manifested itself as saying yes to the scheme; some other time, however, the trait could manifest itself as cheating on a test. Put someone who regularly gets in get-rich-quick schemes and someone who regularly cheats on tests and you might not think they're the same person. I'm no psychologist, so I don't know core traits and how they may dictate our actions. What I do believe is that there are only a handful of traits that, in varying amounts, equal a wholly unique person. There are plenty of tests out there that point to personality traits; I believe one of the most common test has four categories, each with two contrasting possibilities. What these tests don't include is any degree of moral alignment (and maybe they can't since it seems morality is a fluctuating thing); and these tests definitely don't ever tell you what decisions these traits will lead to.
It could be the certain combination of traits that lead one person to give 20% of their earnings to charity is the same combination that could lead someone to commit suicide; and yet someone else who commits suicide might do it and they have a completely different set of character traits than the previous person. I believe there's something no test could show that would show the difference between those two people. Maybe it's morality, maybe it's spirituality, or something else, I don't know.
I realize I'm starting to lose focus here, that you're probably asking yourself, "What is he getting at?" First off, don't judge people based on one or two actions they do (looks like the judging talk will have to wait for another time); secondly, don't write a string of common mistakes off as just mistakes, at some point you have to realize there is something in that person's character traits (or even your own depending on who you're looking at) that's driving them to regularly make those mistakes; thirdly, if you truly want to know someone, you should try to find common, underlying factors in people actions/choices. Two actions may seem unrelated and may be completely opposite, but if you look at the reasoning behind those actions, you might come to realize that they share a certain required thought process; you might also see how they differ and learn even more about the person (or yourself).
Of course, as with many things, you should apply this to yourself. You should constantly be putting yourself in other people's shoes, always be treating others how you want to be treated, and always thinking of how your actions affect other people. The only way you can do any of that is to know yourself first; knowing the reasons behind your actions will help with that.
And I want you to know this to give a little insight into your father. Since I married your mother, I've changed the things I do; I've started being more diligent about some things and I've had to give up other things. Some people might look at these changes and think I'm changing who I am, but I don't believe that. I believe the relatively small set of character traits that make up everyone, the core aspects of who I am haven't changed. Just as an example, you might think being a "gamer" is a character trait, but it's really just a manifestation of when character traits meet circumstances; for me, circumstances have changed, so that aspect of my life has changed. My character defining traits have overridden my desires to do certain things, so I'm taking different actions. Maybe later I'll try to sit down and make a list of things I used to do to try and give you further insight into me; things I've grown out of, things I can't do anymore, things I'm not "allowed" to do anymore, etc.
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