Why Is Character Important?
Why is Character important?
This is what’s possible with Beliefs & Choices Methodology (BCM)
This article will show why a moral character is essential, what qualities are consistent with character development, and how it can serve you toward living an On-Purpose Life.
It doesn’t matter what age you develop your moral character, whether in youth or any decade of your life. We encourage you to consider the following ideas:
A moral character takes time to develop, especially the experience of it to us:
Moral character can be deepened and enriched;
Moral character requires sacrifice and motivation;
Your beliefs, choices, actions, and outcomes become your moral character.
For a perspective on Lincoln's moral character, please prime yourself with the nine character qualities from Lincoln College before reading further into our unique thoughts about character.
(Wisdom Sidebar) Throughout our writing, we use tables to provide greater explanations about a particular subject or topic: we refer to the tables as Wisdom Sidebar Tables. The table example below describes why reading about Lincoln's moral character qualities provides a foundational understanding of how others perceive the character.
| Item | Wisdom Sidebar Explanations |
| We agree with all the points made in the Lincoln moral character reading assignment. We want you to be guided with a world view about another perspective, because you will become exposed to others effective and ineffective beliefs first hand as reference points of consideration. | |
| 02 | As a separate assignment, we suggest listing at least 3 to 5 of the Lincoln character qualities, then write about your reasons for connecting with them. You may find they reveal something about your own beliefs: this is a key point! |
It is the promise of moral character which sometimes holds the keys for some of us these days. Let’s explore why this may be the case…
First Promise Idea
The possibility of Promise..
Here’s a metaphor to consider: glue is a primary ingredient, while somewhat mushy and sticky, purposefully to help hold things together. We suggest the promise of moral character is the glue that holds our attention. As we advance in our understanding of moral character, awareness comes present for us.
The table example below is used to describe the awareness of the belief one can gain from understanding the words you use inside your life stories.
| Item | Wisdom Sidebar Explanations |
| Locked inside your language are beliefs that will fight against your awakening awareness/understanding discovery journey, while persuading you are moving along the wrong track. When this happens, it is clear evidence you are on the right track and you will come to awareness with certainty greater than 8.0 on the CAM Awareness Scale as you advance your analysis and comprehension of the meaning you have given your selection of language in your stories. | |
| 02 | The meaning we give to our stories is where belief is built, usually each belief has an outcome/result associated with the belief. |
Your stories are the grist of your life. We promise that you can figure out your beliefs for yourself with very little assistance once you are taught how to analyze your language and decipher what it really means to you.
Second Promise Idea
A sifter is the second tool to help you in determining what is real and what’s not. The “not part” of it comes from the unreality we give something: our interpretation. We have come to understand that some of the foundational beliefs systems we hold about ourselves and have placed in our lives are based upon a childhood interpretation of an event that didn’t actually occur in the way we perceived it. We will teach you how to use the sifter to filter out these misunderstandings – not in this article but future blogs.
As a starter set of tools, we borrow three spiritual principles and their related steps from the Alcoholics Anonymous program, which, when understood, will serve the purpose of granting value to the concept of moral character development.
Spiritual Principle One
Honesty is the first spiritual principle (i.e., belief), and it holds that one who strives to remain honesty is willing to face a problem and understand it. It requires that one accept the problem as their own. In the words of step one of AA, “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol that our lives had become unmanageable.” You can exchange the word alcohol for your particular challenge (e.g., procrastination, slough, sarcasm, etc.). While it is hard for many to accept our problems and take responsibility for them, there is no truer way than this first step. Without honesty, only distrust will prevail, and distrust typically breeds contempt among our fellow humans.
Spiritual Principle Two
Hope is the spiritual principle of step two, which grants the following “We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves would restore us to sanity.” This step gets us out of ourselves and has us believe in something greater than ourselves: that we will eventually be restored to sanity around our challenge. It could be your deity or anything that you define outside of yourself. Some refer to the outside source as a higher-power. Generally, the higher-power possesses extraordinary gifts that you do not possess – unconditional love usually is a primary characteristic.
Spiritual Principle Three
Faith is the spiritual principle of step three, which grants “Decided to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.” Assuming that we have a spiritual connection, we will be lost and look for our spiritual connection to give us direction. This is the most difficult of the spiritual steps to undertake because it places our connection above us and helps build our faith in the unseen and unknowable. If need be, you can replace the word God in the step with a higher-power or your deity of choice to fit your needs.
Putting them into Action
We suggest that you can have these principles become active by implementing them as part of your foundational beliefs and choices system. It will help you ask yourself questions for each of them: begin by taking the first principle and asking if you need to take responsibility for a problem? You will know the answer almost immediately.
In any case, you will find that using the principles in your beliefs and their usage will make you a stronger, more resilient person as long as you keep asking yourself how and why moral character matters to you. Keep yourself in a constant inquiry, especially when it requires you to have integrity in a world which sometimes doesn’t value it.
(Community Sharing) For those of you that follow our development process, you’ll note that we release our blogs in portions as we develop our ideas: purposefully so that you can see our thinking process – we call it live-time writing.
