Why build character?

*Taking Charge of Your Life (condensed from the book Ernest Wood)

Charater is a stamp or mark of the soul expressed in life

Why should you deliberately aim at the development of character?
First because you will never be satisfied or happy till you do, & second because the game of life requires it of you as a duty. You are alive for a purpose, and somewhere within your consciousness you have a dim inkling of that fact; you are either seeking or expecting something the lack of which leaves you without complete satisfaction.

Abundant life is not chiefly to be found , however, in material quantity. You do not need enormous physical riches, any more than you want a huge body like a giant in a story book, but you do desire abounding health physically emotionally and mentally for these are the spiritual riches. The spirit within measures its things by quality not by quantity. What will give permanent joy is not greater nor power over others nor the spread of your meaningless name in what people call fame, not longer bones and more abundant flesh but more character. For those who aim at these things success is certain for the power within the self is on their side.



It is the character that is the person, and the only thing that can be called progress for anyone is its development. To be passive is to be dead or asleep for a moment. Even in that religious devotion to God which has been practiced by the most noble men, there was a constant active effort to open the mind and heart in devotion in order to be conscious of the spiritual force or grace that cannot flow into the closed minds of lazy, thoughtless and selfish men.
The lessons of the school of life do not result in accumulated texts of knowledge but in the character--in what we are.