“Some are blessed with the physical and mental facility, but none are more prized than the one who has developed true character.” – Greg Henry Quinn
What is GOOD CHARACTER?
The character is something that is intrinsically within a person and is above race, religion, age or gender, and even education and one’s personality. Character traits will determine how a person responds or reacts when faced with a certain situation in life. A person with “good character” acts, thinks, and feels in a way that matches some commonly accepted “good” traits, like being honest, respectful, responsible, caring, fair.
“Your reputation is in the hands of others. That’s what a reputation is. You can’t control that. The only thing you can control is your character.” – Dr Wayne W. Dyer
In today’s world of technology, everyone’s busy with their social media, TV etc. Nobody cares about developing a character. But I think Character is the most important thing in any person’s life. We all need to focus on developing our character. The character is the sum total of all the good qualities in a person. It consists of honesty, truthful speech and dealings, dutiful- nests, diligence, and obedience to parents, teachers, and elders. Sincerity, love of mankind, inner goodness and desire to do well to others and to be free from hatred, jealousy, and malice are also part of the character. To live in harmony with the people of all religions, races, castes, and nations may be added to the characteristics of a high character.
Some important qualities of a good character.
Always Speak Politely
The first and the most important quality of a person is how he talks to others. We should develop a habit that with whomsoever we speak we should be polite to that person. always think before speaking, as it can be dangerous. Words are like bullets, once they are out, you cant control the damage they do. So, we should control our tongue.
Some important points to remember while speaking:
- We should speak only if our speech will be good and beneficial.
- We should be truthful when we speak and refrain from lying
- We should refrain from using bad language or cursing at all time
- We should refrain from backbiting
- We should not speak about matters that we hear about, without investigation
- We should refrain from involvement in senseless arguments in which the sole purpose is to put down others and to show superiority.
“If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.” – J.K. Rowling
Respect
Another important quality is to give respect to others and most of the people lack this quality. I have been noticing this thing that the respecting factor vanishing from our society. Nobody gives enough respect to one another. Even children today are very disrespectful. While respect is an integral part of our life, experience has proven that in any field of life only those people excelled who were respectful to their teachers and seniors. Experience has also repeatedly proven that those who are devoid of respect, despite tremendous ability and potential, were largely unsuccessful.
While respect for elders is fast decreasing in general, shocking incidents that regularly come to light indicate the level to which respect for parents has fallen. Do not even use words like ‘uff’, ‘duh’, ‘blah blah blah’ to your parents and elders. These words denote the slightest degree of displeasure. How can it ever be permissible to talk harshly to one’s parents or to argue with them? Yet, even the unthinkable, that parents are physically abused by their children, is often reported.
Honesty
In the 21st century, we live in a world where honesty is valued and yet shunned at the same time. We expect people to be honest in their dealings with us yet we watch and applaud television shows and movies that promote and encourage lying and deceitfulness. Honesty incorporates the concepts of truthfulness and reliability and it resides in all human thought, words, actions, and relationships. It is more than just accuracy; it is more than just truthfulness, it denotes integrity or moral soundness.
I can tell from my father’s experience that people nowadays are very unscrupulous. A lot of people betrayed my father in lots of dealings. But a dishonest person never realizes that his dishonesty may cause trouble for him. Be honest, like karma, it will eventually come back to you.
“The greatest truth is Honesty, and the greatest falsehood is Dishonesty.” – Abu Bakr
We must try to improve our character. Improving our character, however, is not at all an easy task. One must go through rigorous self-discipline, monitoring, and education in order to reform our entire way of thinking and acting.
The way to establish a good moral code is to clear our heads of bad ideas and interpretations. We have to teach ourselves different and better ways to analyze ideas and events that we may come across. This may sound easy, but for most of us, it requires intense training and effort.
Let us look at some scenarios as examples. Let us say we are going out for a walk. We are walking along and we get stopped by a homeless person who asks us for money for food. Some of us will completely ignore this person and include him in a stereotype we might have of homeless people. We might think that this person will use the money for cigarettes or alcohol. We might even wonder why this person does not have a job like the rest of us. Enter our new and improved moral code–we can either give this person money for the sake of God or ask him to buy food with it or run over to the nearest fast food restaurant and buy this person a meal. The lesson here is to never turn away a person who asks you for help.
Buy anything from a person from whom nobody’s buying anything. You might not like the things he is selling but if you buy it he’ll give you good wishes and those good wishes or blessings will help you in the future.
“When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost.” – Billy Graham
Thank you, Bushra Shaikh, for this wonderful guest post. Check out her blog at Bushrazblog.