So, recently I started reading Stephen R. Covey’s book; the 7 habits of highly effective people, trust me it’s a great book, but my procrastination won’t let me finish oh! So while reading, I can across the character ethics and I felt I must share.
What is character?
As defined by the oxford dictionary, it means the following;
• A distinguished feature; characteristics
• A complex of mental and ethical traits, marking a person or a group of persons
• Strength of mind; resolution; individuality; moral strength
The list of meanings goes on, but for the sake of this piece the above meanings would suffice. On the other hand, ethics means;
The study of principles relating to right and wrong; morality. They are standards governing the conducts of a person.
Therefore, one can say character ethics are the traits, principles, moral guide governing one’s life and conducts. They are the codes one lives by, the basic foundation from which we draw strength to make decisions. We live by our character ethics.
It’s safe to say that character is synonymous to personality and this cannot be over emphasized as your personality is who you are, how you relate with people. Whatever you do has your character and personality stamped all over it. It is your brand, whether you know this fact or not, is very irrelevant, because people would literally know your character from your actions.
Character is a combination of several qualities that makes a person unique, you literally stand out like a blue blood in the mist of muggules; I hope you can relate to my expression. The six pillars of character are;
• Trustworthiness
• Respect
• Responsibility
• Fairness
• Caring
• citizenship
To quote Stephen R. Covey;
In stark contrast, almost all the literature In the first 150 years or so focused on what could be called character ethics as the foundation of success- things like integrity, humility, fidelity, temperance, courage, justice, patience, industry, simplicity and the golden rule.
The character ethics taught that there are basic principles of effective living, and that people can only experience true success and enduring happiness as they learn and integrate these principles into their basic character.
The last paragraph is so powerful, it implies that without the right principles and character we cannot live right or know true happiness or even find success because a bad character sticks out like a sore thumb and we would not want that would we now?
Like all the things there is always the good and the bad. There are good and bad characters alike, and it begs the following questions….
image from pixabay.com
Dear reader, what is your character?
What do people say about your way of living?
Can people you have interacted with boldly say, oh, that child is off good character?
We need to define our character ethics, because whether we know it or not, it defines us.
Thank you for reading.