LIFE: Living Intentionally For Excellence.
Meetings are Tuesday nights at 6pm at the Rilynn Proffessional Building.
Contact Jennifer Walker for more information: 951-309-1032
Resolved: To Choose Character over Reputation Any Time They Conflict
“We can often do more for other men by trying to correct our own faults than by trying to correct theirs.” Francois Fenelon. Francois Fenelon lived from 1651 – 1715; he was a French Roman Catholic archbishop and today remembered mostly as the author of The Adventures of Telemachus, an attack on the French monarchy. I googled quotes on character to get inspiration for this speech and came across this quote, immediately it spoke directly to me. I thought so many times I point out the flaws in others rather than looking at myself. As I researched the man behind the quote I found it humbling and sad that a man who lived 300 years ago spoke such truth about humans then and it still applies to us today. We as people like to think that we have come so far, maybe in our technology this is true, however when it comes to our thoughts and behaviors it seems the opposite. As I read the quote I instantly thought of my kids, I am blessed to be able to be involved in my kids’ life. However, this can be challenging as well, there have been plenty of times I sit down with one of my kids to talk about a situation and realize the character issue is one they picked up from me. You can learn so much about your self watching your children. My daughter and I are very close, she has been by my side since we was born. One day we were driving in the car and her brother was doing something to agitate her, I cannot even remember what was going on, but I do remember hearing her scold him in the loudest meanest voice. I wanted to laugh and cry all at the same time. I think she was 4 years old, so it was cute to hear her tiny voice use such language, but it was not that cute when I realized that she was modeling my behavior. I sat there for a minute and thought to myself, is this how my children see me? Do I really handle conflict by raising my voice and scolding? I tried to explain to her that her brother just wanted her attention and made a note in my heart to remember, next time slow down and evaluate, do the kids want my attention or are they misbehaving. As I read more books and listen to more audios I am learning that the best thing I can do for my children I lead by example. If I want my children to have integrity I must first show them how to live a life of integrity. John Wooden’s Three Principles of Integrity are 1. Never lie. 2. Never cheat. 3. Never steal. At first glance it would seem that living by these principles would be simple, they are simple principles that most people would say they do live by. However, when we dig a little deeper, how many of us have told our children to lie about their age to get a discount? In this situation we are not hurting anyone, just trying to save a little money, but the outcome is that we just showed our children that it is ok to lie to someone and cheat them out of money to save a few dollars. The other day I was grocery shopping with my daughter and her friend, we picked out some grapes to bring home and continued shopping, and a few minutes into our trip the girls asked if they could have a few grapes. I could have easily said yes, it would not have hurt anyone. Instead, I told them no and explained that grapes are charged by the weight, if we eat grapes before paying for them, we would be stealing the grapes as they would not be able weigh them properly. Everyday we are given opportunities to live these principles or not, it is our choice and our consequence based on the small decisions that me make. Resolved: 13 Resolutions for life says, “Integrity is a crucial attribute, but a person can have unimpeachable integrity and still not have character.” Page 54. The book points out that integrity is not doing what wrong and character is doing what is right. Integrity tells us that when two people are gossiping about another person to us, that we do not join in. While character tells us that not only do we not join in, we also stop the wrong from being done. It can be easy to listen to others gossip and just not join in to feel as though we did nothing wrong, however, by not stopping the wrong our character has been tarnished. Doing the right thing is more difficult as it requires us to step out of the shadows and into the light to stand often by ourselves.
Jennifer Walker
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