can actions turn into truth?

Back in Chinese school, I remember a class that had us recite an idiom about a snake and a farmer in Chinese: 农夫与蛇.

• A farmer finds a snake freezing in the cold winter snow
• Pitying the snake, the farmer nurses the snake back to health
• After the snake recovers, it bites and kills the farmer

One’s true nature will never change.

The other day, however, I had an interesting dream. Let's propose the same idiom. But this time after reviving, the snake does not kill the farmer.

The next day in dreamland, the scenario repeats itself... with the same snake. And when the snake recovers again, it does not kill the farmer.

Finally, assume this scenario repeats until the snake dies of old age.

Let me now pose the question: Assuming that the snake's nature is truly evil, did it manage to change its instincts?

For all we know, the snake could have wanted to kill the farmer each time, but instead consciously chose not to. Maybe it chose to spare the farmer so many times that it forgot its desire to kill. As an objective viewer, the snake's nature looks as if it has done a complete 180.

Which ultimately brings me to this:

Even for things as fundamental as nature and nurture, can people ~ through willpower ~ choose actions that present a different, better person?

And can those actions turn into truth?