Character building codes allow no defective materials. Think about it. If you’re building character, you’re building moral excellence. You’re creating a building that must endure many winds of opposition. You’re constructing a building that will be shaken by many moral earthquakes. It will be tested daily. You cannot afford to use defective materials. If you try, you will not be building authentic character. You will end with a weak building.
Character building codes allow no defective materials such as half-truths. You can’t build authentic character if you insert blocks of half-truth at any point. You must have full truth, full honesty. There is a standard for blocks of honesty. Character building requires big blocks of solid, granite-strong honesty. It is the only thing that will meet the code. Every block must meet that standard. Every block must be pure and solid throughout. There cannot be a seam of sandy, gray sedimentary material. There cannot be any deception, in any form, for even a moment. Honesty must be absolute, day in and day out.
Character building codes allow no defective materials such as false courage. Sparkling with their myriad flakes of white mica, the sands of false courage are beautiful at first sight, but they offer no strength. They produce nothing more than a glistening façade. The character building code does not allow the sand of false courage as a building material. Only true courage of convictions can provide the strength needed for character building. Only when you help a teenager build courage of convictions will you help him or her become a person of character. Only when a young child takes a leap of true courage or an older child embraces convictions and lives by the courage of those convictions have we used the proper material in building character.
Those of us who work to build character, whether in our own lives or in the lives of others, need to conscientiously use only strong, enduring materials. When we work to build respect, we must build respect for all people, not just some people. We must teach young people that respect is a sign of strength. It is a strength of character to show respect to parents, teachers, and others. It is not a sign that they are wimps. It is not a good thing to be disrespectful. Make respect a strong building block.
When we build responsibility, we must select the most perfect, solid blocks of responsibility. We can use books such as Cubby Bear’s Big Responsibility with young children, showing them that you always, always will answer for whether or not you performed your duty to the best of your ability. With older children, we can use books such as Lost on Superstition Mountain to teach the same strong lesson. When we help teenagers build responsibility, we can use a powerful, yet exciting novel such as Date with Responsibility to awaken them to reality. Responsibility must be built of very strong blocks that never allow for anything less than a person’s absolute best.
Take time to study a good list of character traits and see how demanding each one really is. Can we build strong, unshakeable character with integrity that waffles? If we insert blocks of commitment that wobble like jelly, will our character stand up to life’s tests? How about self-control that constantly shifts from side to side?
There are building codes for those who engage in character building, and those codes allow no defective materials.
That’s the view from my chair. What’s your view?