People may generally say that the singular trait of a great man is that he must have "character". Webster defines character as "The aggregate of peculiar qualities which constitutes personal or national individuality". This however, is not what most of us have come to think of when we speak of someone as having character. Webster only defines character as an individual that can portray eccentric roles.

When I think of character I think of a man who has overcome difficulty and risen above it to achieve a hard won dignity that is supported by virtues won through hard trials. I therefore cannot think of someone who is born with character even though Webster indicates he might be. I can see a man who has learned the value of speaking the truth even in times when it may cost him everything. A man who has his priorities in the correct order.

Our priorities tend to fall into two groups. Those persons that are propelled only by the force of self interest and who put themselves first in the list. A person such as this would see nothing wrong with a statement like the end justifies the means. Their social involvement is worn like a garment. They use people to achieve their ends. Nothing will separate them from their goals including lying, stealing, and worse. They could not possibly understand the concept of forgiveness but only know that they must get even with their enemies. They are vile people and harm us all.

The other group of priorities are those persons that put others ahead of themselves and generally have a deep spiritual nature. These persons put God first, family second, and everything else falls in under that. Self interest is not the first consideration. These people quickly run into situations where their ability to tell the truth is put to the test. Often in business or work the truthful answer will cost you salary or position. A person who is driven only by self interest would think a truthful answer to be silly.

Take an introspective look. How do you answer the small things in your work day. Someone calls you that you do not want to talk to or do not have the time for, and how do you answer them. "I'll get back to you" when you know full well that you never will. Do you make excuses about not having time when that is not the case. How many times to you answer a lie before you even stop to think about it.

Those are the tests of character. They are not often large tests but just the small things. A person who answers truthfully even when it puts him in an uncomfortable position is doing the right thing. Life goes too fast and suddenly one day you may be sitting in a wheel chair in the nursing home and saying to your self "why didn't I just tell the truth"? Has your whole life been a lie?

Do not think that overcoming these small tests is easy, it may be the most difficult thing you have ever done but in overcoming adversity we develop "real" character. When we give our word is it always the truth. The people in our society that are these overcomers have true character and not the Hollywood version. In the long run you will feel comfortable as you reach the end of your years if you know that you fought your battles bravely and told the truth even when it hurt you badly. We come into this world without anything and we shall leave it the same way but perhaps our character will provide for us when we have nothing else.

So that leaves us with people who are destroyers using everyone for their own advantage and people who are builders that support and encourage others to be overcomers.

Take a look at children. When they are in school they look not to their parents but to their peers to find role models and among their peers today they find kids who bring guns to school, kids who use drugs, kids who try as hard as possible to do everything that people indicate as "adult". The adult term means that they want to completely jump over their childhood and become adult. They are motivated by reasons that are portrayed on all media which tells them that only adults can do what ever they please and that money justifies anyone. They therefore set their life's goals to reach the level when they can be seen by others as having achieved adulthood where they can have all of the material goods, power over others, fame or recognition and they never glimpse anything over this material goal.

You can see what is wrong with this very simply. They may achieve a goal but only a material goal that they reach by any means possible. They will continue to use others and destroy lives in the process. Almost everything that the world typifies as success is therefore emptiness and the achievement of it is hollow leaving the person feeling lost and having no real friends. It would seem that the children look to the wrong peers.

Anyone can see the difference we are all born into. Some babies are born into rich families, they may have all the positive attributes like good looks, and network with persons that they can use to rise quickly to a position that others could not even consider. Others are born into poor homes perhaps with a single parent and life looks like a terrific struggle to even survive not to mention to achieve high position. I always resented the phrase "all men are created equal" as I could clearly see they were not. As it turns out the rich family may be a curse. A child will simply expect people to give him what he wants and get mad when they don't. A child born into poor circumstances knows that he will have to commit himself to improve himself and work hard to achieve anything. He doesn't expect that anyone will give him anything. That may tend to equalize things a bit when you consider how much a drawback a rich childhood can be.

In only a few minutes you can learn to tell the difference between these two groups of people. Remember that the person acting only from self interest will never accept the fact that he is faulted, in anything! He will always state firmly that it is someone else's fault! In other words he makes excuses, believing that he is faultless(or perfect) and anything that went wrong therefore is someone else's fault and they should be punished. Behavior of this type might be seen in young children also. A man of character would try to understand the problem and set about to correct it. He would accept the blame if he was to blame. He would not indicate that it was anyone else's fault. People are basically transparent and easy to understand. The self motivated individual however believes that he remains behind a shield and no one could possibly guess what is really his purposes. Life is always a choice of roads. Which road are you on? If you can see that you are on the wrong road don't blame someone just take the exit ramp and take that old road with all the potholes. It is the potholes after all that grind away the ugly side of a man to expose the virtuous man with real character. The other man is not really a man at all.

The OldSalt