Not by Accident

What is the process by which we can become people of character?  Each person has the same 24 hours in each day.  In fact life is a series of cyclical events:  sun up to sundown happens every 24 hours.  Every 7 days is another week.  One revolution around the sun is a year... and we start some things over.  But hopefully we are not in the same place, we are not the same person every time the earth goes around the sun or even every 24 hours when the sun comes up and goes back down.  Hopefully we have gotten better over this series of cycles.

To help recognize our growth, and likely to encourage our maturity as contributing members of society and people of character, almost every community has "rites of passage" to recognize siginficant times in life when a person transitions from one stage to the next.  Most often this is from childhood to being an adult.  Bar/Bat mitzvas, quinceanera, graduations, marriages and even retirement parties are examples of such rites.  These are public celebrations of individual accomplishments. 

An important question to ponder is where am I in my development through all these cycles (daily, monthly, yearly, etc.), particularly as it pertains to becoming a better person and developming character.  The passage of time is not the qualifier.  Plenty of people simply waste their time in a state of stagnation and ease.  Am I pushing my limits, growing, expaning my capacity even if it is uncomfortable.  Improvement always comes at a price and requires sacrifice.  

This episode contains a story as related by Maria Baer and John Stonestreet on the BreakPoint podcast (aired on May 10, 2024).

Is joy in giving or receiving?  Where Christmas is concerned, children will definitely say it is in the receiving.  Adults and maturing teens will likely feel otherwise.  While this is evident at Christmas, it is more true, although more difficult, in our lives every day.  To give of ourselves, our talents and our time, to make another's life easier or to lift someone who is carrying a heavy burden; to set aside our own wants or needs and place others ahead of ourselves; to give... that is the secret of life.  In the end, we either take from life, we consume, we accumulate as much as we can OR we can have an experience like Gary from Long Island (in this experience from the Dennis Prager show).

Children, teenagers and adults all spend time thinking and working toward "what they want to be when they grow up".  While being a good teacher, a good dentist, a good salesperson or a good business owner is important, it is infinitely more important to grow up and be good.  Society won't fall apart because we don't have a enough good accountants or actors but it will if we gon't have a critical mass of good people.  One challenge is that people are rarely naturally good, kind, generous, honorale... pick your virtue.  We have to practice these through deliberate choice and hard work.  In fact we have to identify some negative traits or character deficiencies and work at turning these weaknesses into their opposites.  A lazy person can become someone who tirelessly spends their time working on projects, improving themself or serving others.  It takes deliberate action and does not happen by accident.  This episode features a personal reflection by Dennis Prager (see www.Pragertopia.com) that he shared on the Dennis and Julie podcast.

We've got it all wrong.  In a world of "likes", "followers" and fame, we falsely think the more people like or hear us, the more important we are.  We think meaning comes from the number of people who are paying attention to us.  And everything around us--from scientific studies to our own personal experience--says that relationships (the ones that matter) are made with individuals. We feel it and it resonates with us when one person takes time and gives 100% of their time and attention to us.  That communicates:  "you are more important to me than anything or anyone else, you matter, I care about YOU."   How many famous people feel utterly alone?  How many wealthy people would give all their money to have one person who deeply cares, listens and loves them?  We do not form connections with masses of distant, nameless cheering crowds or "followers".  Our most cherished, our deepest and the most meaning ful connections are with a handful of individuals.  Parents, spouse, brothers or sisters and children.  These are the individuals who take care of us; who would sacrifice everything for us.  These are the relationships that people hunger for.  Those who understhand the power of 1 on 1 connection and relationship can expand their influence to bless others. But in this busy world the two things more difficult and more valuable to give than money is our time and our undivided attention.  If you can master this quality, your influence can be limitless.

Being grateful--feeling and expressing gratitude--is a quality that has an impact on so many other virtues and the general wellbeing of your life.  There does not exist a happy, content and grounded person who is not grateful.  And it is not the amount of stuff, friends or comforts we possess that make a person grateful.  In fact those with much are often some of the most ungrateful people in the world while those with very little are the most grateful for what they have.  And therfore also the happiest.  I think we all know people who seem to have everything including wealth, fame, and things but who are miserable.  It sounds ironic but it is a sad truth about human nature.  Many of us have grown up since childhood enjoying life at the height of human civili\zation. We simply don't know any different and that is dangerous because it blinds us to the way life has been for most people for thousands of years and even today.  There are millions who will go to bed hungry and now know where there next meal will come.  There are other millions who will not sleep in a bed or in a home they can call their own.  Many young boys will have to work to help support their family and many girls are not even allowed to go to school and obtain an education.  So many of us have so much to be thankful for, and we don't even realize it.

Story from the Dennis Prager Radio Show (www.Pragertopia.com) on Sept. 13, 2024

You are not going to win or succeed every time.  In fact, in life you, me and everyone will encounter more disappointments and failures that successes.  Simply accepting this reality actually makes life easier.  It takes some of the pressure off.  It gives us a better perspective when we don't succeed. We can shrug off the failure as a common feature of life rather than being devastated.  A healthy and realistic expectation also makes the failures sting less and avoid seeking someone or something to blame.  It also helps us avoid a victim mentality (that all the world, society and people are out to get us) which is devastating to our happiness and future success in life.  So knowing I'm going to have some setbacks, what is the key?  Keep going!  Failure is a temporary milemarker on the journey (the long, difficult, hot journey) to success.

There is no truly great person who is not fundamentally concerned about the needs of others. While it is important to focus on and work on improving ourselves, particularly developing positive qualities, our intellect, working hard to improve our place in life, so much of happiness, self-esteem and meaning comes from serving others.  In the end, life is not about "me".  It is about lifting, helping, serving and being attentive to the needs of others.  Something magical happens to our own problems, fears, trials and shortcomings...  they become smaller and feel less burdensome.  When we live outside ourselves we become a person of character (and coincidentally, more people like us).  Two stories of this kind of living are included:  Steve Young and Mother Theresa.  Every great person, famous or not, puts other people first and recognizes the seemingly ironic teaching by Jesus:  "whosoever would save his life will lost it, but whosoever loses his life for my sake will find it."

In the training of character we sometimes work on single muscles but there are some qualities or virtues that are so profound and sophisticated that they are an entire muscle group.  Integrity is one of these.  Integrity includes responsiblity, honor/honesty and truthfulness.  This podcast explores the critical nature of telling the truth, always!  An otherwise accomplished life, full of hard work and sacrifice, can be ruined with one deviation from truth, with the telling of one lie.  Trust and integrity are hard fought victories but a single instance of lying can call it all into question.  When we lie we lose part of ourselves.  Integrity means "the state of being whole or undivided".  When we lie, things are based on a facade, a fabrication and the world, our world becomes unstable.  All lies are discovered, eventually.  The result is things fall apart  -careers fall apart, marriages fall apart, lives fall apart, trust crumbles.  That is a steep price to pay for not telling the truth.  Like so many things, telling the truth is like a muscle that grows stronger the more we use it.  It becomes reflexive and habitual.  Hence the need to tell the truth, always while we are young. The pressure to capitulate even a tiny bit becomes more intense as we grow older.  Those truth muscles need to be strong enough to hold together: integrity!

Conflict and opposition bring out the best (and the worst) in human nature.  War is the ultimate expression of conflict and is, unfortunately, a staple of the human experience.  War provides a line in the sand at which men and women say "this is what I believe and this is worth dying for."  We need people of character, conviction and courage to stand for the right.  We must fight injustice, oppression and those who will always try to inflict their will while denying the rights of others.  Stories and illustrations of great sacrifice and duty come out of war.  We need to know of these stories.  We need to celebrate them.  Why?  Because we need to emulate the qualities in peace time, in war time and in those in between times when humanity teeters in one direction or the other.  This episode contains the story of one man who gives us much to emulate and for which to strive.  Thanks to Jesse Kelly and The Jesse Kelly Show for the Medal of Honor citation.

Loyalty and devotion are critical components of character.  These are especially essential do demonstrate with family and friends.  As with any good virtues, these often demand sacrifice and only become meaningful when they are put into practice when there is a steep price to pay.  Many people walk away from responsibilities when that price becomes too high.  We live in a world of "what's in it for me?"  The truth is, standing up and fulfilling our obligations -especially when our obligations or repsonsibilities are to other people, particularly those who are relying on us and have no way of paying us back- is the purest form of love.  This story (thank you PBS and Story Corps) of a mother and a daughter with a rare, lifelong disease is unique, to be sure, but it illustrates the same truth that each of us can exhibit in a hundred ways unique to every person and their particular life situation.