The Building Blocks of Character

Character, the measure of a person’s mental and moral qualities that determines his or her thoughts and actions in the world, seems to be increasingly elided in contemporary discussions about how to live the good life. Among much of the self-help literature, well-being or happiness is now typically invoked as the most important quality worth maximising. There is indeed good argument to value well-being if we understand it as happiness and satisfaction. If, however, this happiness and satisfaction are interpreted in a narrowly hedonistic way, such advice might miss an essential facet of human flourishing: that of cultivating character and encouraging others to do the same.

Humility is the awareness that there’s a lot you don’t know and that a lot of what you think you know is distorted or wrong

David Brooks, author of The Road to Character

Recall moments in your life when you encountered individuals who made a positive impression on you. You might have noted that they led lives of integrity and moral purpose, that they were not easily frazzled by the twists and turns of human existence and did not crumble even from persistent difficulties. While they come in all shapes, sizes, and temperaments, they all exhibit a settled-ness demonstrative of the wisdom that they’ve won from experience. They are kind even in the unkindest situations and don’t seem to have any desire to prove themselves to a world that they know doesn’t care. In fact, they don’t seem to be thinking of themselves much at all. They act simply because they are driven by an overpowering desire to do the right thing.

They make the people around them feel more intelligent and more humorous, and don’t seem to abide by any social class or distinction. They don’t boast about themselves even though they may have reason to and rarely seem doggedly certain or self-righteous about pretty much anything even though they’ve reflected a great deal about their values and beliefs. Unlike the majority who, in one way or another, have already been sucked into the self-concerned, competitive, and distinction hungriness of the world, they instead exude humility and authentic gratefulness for being alive and cognizant of all the blessings they’ve had the privilege to enjoy.

Thankfulness is a soil in which pride does not easily grow

Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of Canterbury.

How did they become like this? Effortless as it may seem on the surface, cultivating a strong inner character that would allow someone to exemplify such virtues isn’t linear nor is it easy. The common denominator among many such people is the confluence of painful life circumstances that have forced them to look deep into themselves, come to terms with who they are, and galvanise them to grow into the kind of people they know they have to be to overcome or accept those challenges. And as anyone would know, sustained and honest introspection is seldom a pleasant experience. Our consumption preferences, satisfying as they may be, seem designed precisely to distract us from ourselves.    

The beginning of worth-while living is […] the confrontation with ourselves

Harry Emerson Fosdick, minister and author of On Being a Real Person

Frances Perkins, the American advocate for workers’ rights, experienced such a transformation in her character. Before witnessing a horrific industrial disaster, now known as the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire which killed 146 factory workers, Perkins, already an advocate for workers’ rights, expected to live an otherwise genteel middle-class life: to get married and live relatively comfortably. After the fire, she was forced to re-assess her values because of the indignation she felt for the sake of those killed in the fire and those who lost their loved ones and sources of financial stability as a result. Her cause morphed into her career. She gradually became impatient with and hence dropped the habit of being nice for its own sake toward the less fortunate – common of progressives in her social class who were more concerned with cloying sympathy than with concrete action – and embraced whatever was necessary, including morally hazardous action which strained her reputation, to serve and protect them instead.   

Jane Addams, a notable American social worker, likewise recognised that compassion is a deceptive emotion. She observed too many intangible statements of sentiment directed at the poor and marginalized and too many times displays of benevolence devolved into presumptuous superiority among those privileged to offer community service to others. Therefore, Hull House, a settlement house for the poor that she co-founded, operated as far as possible on the actual needs of those who came. All social workers were mandated to check their opinions at the door when investigating needs and to advise practically so that the poor could yet determine their lives, rather than have their lives determined for them.   

Benevolence is the twin of pride

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Some things don’t change. We can observe, in a good number of young professionals today, and if we’re honest, in our own lives, how the idealism of youth often gives way to cynicism and inaction over time. Moral ambitions shrink, and the cares of the world stifle the sacrificing and effacing self who wished one day to make a positive impact in the world. Career and family soon occupy all of one’s time, money, and mindshare; and everything else must be repressed to accommodate these new priorities. Addams likewise observed that many young people give up their dreams of effecting social change for the daily races. Yet, she points out, in her memoir, that working at a place like Hull House could give young people the chance to surrender their lives, if only temporarily, to an ennobling vocation and thus discover their first love.

Cultivating one’s character brings with it a host of benefits not only to oneself but to others. Those with character have strong personal security and an accurate measure of their self-worth. They take to constructive criticism as a child to candy, and they learn from their experiences. They persistently work on their weaknesses and are more open to new ideas as long as those ideas are consistent with their values. They keep their word and finish what they start. And because they are not insecure about where they stand in any hierarchy, they are able to subsume their interests to the goals of the group and thus encourage others to do the same for the overall benefit of everyone.

So, if cultivating character is such a boon, why do so many seem to lack it? The simple answer is human nature.

The Character of Human Nature

People are by nature self-centred. From birth, we only have experiential access to our own thoughts, emotions, and desires. Unless checked by external forces, the consequent drive to use others for personal gain comes easily and almost naturally. By the time we are old enough to speak, we use this drive to seek recognition and can react volatile-y to the behaviours of others that we perceive devalue our status. Having access to only our experiences also leads to pride, the misguided perception that we are somehow ‘superior’ to others by virtue of the fact that they aren’t us. We are quick to spot the imperfections in others and even quicker to ignore or rationalize our own. We almost universally judge ourselves morally equal or superior to other people: we are more virtuous, have better taste, and are better able to judge good and evil.

Even though most of us – I hope – somewhere deep down know that some loves should be regarded as more valuable than others, like family and friends over money and popularity, we often default to things that bring us hedonistic pleasure in the here and now, and throw away things that have intrinsic value. How many times have you experienced the love of hedonism overpower the love of fidelity? To friendship, or anything else? How many times have you blabbed or had a friend blab about something said in confidence because the love of popularity (i.e., being able and willing to share good gossip) overpowered the love of friendship?  

A sober examination of the blackness of our own souls tells us that there is a duality in human nature, i.e., that we have both light and darkness in us. Today, we might invoke the social sciences, like moral psychology, to model and explain this duality. But faith traditions in years past have already created a mountain of literature on this. Among anglophones such as us, we would be most familiar with the idea of sin. Sin is the selfish, deceiving and self-deceiving part of ourselves. It does battle with the side of us which seeks to pursue, discover and do what is good. It is no surprise, then, that many faith traditions portray life as a dramatic struggle between our light and dark sides. It is out from this struggle that character is furnished.

However we understand this duality in human nature – from a religious or non-religious perspective – an essential step to developing character is first to recognize it, in ourselves as well as in others.

The same ambition that drives us to build a new company also drives us to be materialistic and to exploit. The same lust that leads to children leads to adultery. The same confidence that can lead to daring and creativity can lead to self-worship and arrogance

David Brooks

Darkness starts small and may be driven initially by good intentions, e.g., the ends justify the means, etc. But like a spiralling snowball, it accrues into something big and dangerous over time. Misdemeanours feed on themselves. A few compromises here and there lead to big life-destroying decisions down the road. Thus, the darkness that we allow to fester in us morphs into its own punishment. Sloth and vanity can lead to destitution and gluttony to chronic illness. Anger and lust can be highly destructive, while mockery and disrespect stain one’s reputation. Arrogance and pride destroy noble pursuits and relationships. The narcissism that drives them manifests differently among those disposed to extraversion and introversion: exhibitionistic and grandiose on the one hand, and isolated and depressive yet radiating superiority on the other.   

But bad as darkness may be, it is also the catalyst for character building. We build character when we choose to battle darkness. It is by stopping the spiralling snowball in its tracks that we engrave the hard-won qualities of virtue in our psyche evidenced in our daily habits. Self-control, is, therefore, an important facet of character building; and may be why public intellectuals, from Aristotle to Jordan Peterson, advocate involving ourselves in routine habitual acts of self-control, from making our beds every morning, to dressing appropriately when going out, and to eating plain food whenever possible.   

Someone who lacks character and allows darkness to fester engulfs him or herself in a foul stench. It clouds all other positive fragrances a person might otherwise possess. For example, intelligence paired with weak character leads to an easily corruptible personality, selfish and agenda driven. By contrast, someone of average intelligence and aptitude in relation to the occupation that they intend to pursue but who possesses strong character will prove more reliable and hence more productive in the long run. Companies would do well to prioritize character over intelligence in their hiring practices.

People of real strength are as rare as gold, and if you find them, you should respond as if you had discovered a treasure

David Brooks

Given human nature, how then can we cultivate character?

The Creation of Character

Our struggle to build character begins with the realisation that we cannot do it alone. Pride, greed, self-deception and a host of vices easily fester when we do not have people concerned for our welfare point them out to us and help us fight them. We are a social species and our lives are majorly defined by the people we interact with. Hence, we need ‘redemptive assistance’ from social instruments designed for this purpose. They include family, friends, religious traditions, state apparatuses, and so on. We give and receive support and encouragement through these instruments.

But while communities are valuable in this regard, silence and solitary contemplation can also be instructive. Frances Perkins discovered this when she retreated to All Saint Convent in Maryland for days of sustained prayer, menial duties, and contemplation in response to the threat of the impeachment to her position as labour secretary because of her involvement in the labour uprisings. There she discovered the beauty and restorative power of silence amidst the storm of her troubles and an idle world that wouldn’t stop talking about things which – in the long run – didn’t matter.     

Keep in mind also that social pressures and the desire for admiration within groups mean that sometimes, people will do things in groups that they wouldn’t feel conscionable doing otherwise. Because group action is often more powerful than individual action, it behoves us to consider carefully the groups that we join.  

Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness

Reinhold Niebuhr

Dwight D. Eisenhower is yet another exemplar. He held that the nature of humanity was that of artifice and that the cultivation of character therefore began with pruning the raw material of one’s personality and temperament. In other words, we don’t parade what we start with because it’s never a pretty sight. Rather, we artificially create the person we want to become, and allow that artifice to become our reality through habit. Eisenhower also believed that moderation in decision-making should be highly prized. He realized that there were no ultimate solutions to the problems that plagued the nation, but only temporary balances that could meet the needs of the moment.   

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit

Will Durant paraphrasing Aristotle

Today’s policymakers who make decisions based on evidence about human nature and data aggregated from past practices rather than (revolutionary) ideology think the same way Eisenhower did. When positioned to create communities of character, we should do the same, i.e., lead gradually and along the grain of human nature rather than against it. Leaders must first recognise that they are just as prone to being selfish, narrow-minded, and self-deceiving as anyone else, possibly even more so because leadership positions often increase their blind spots. Knowing that radical change is often more deleterious than helpful because of the many competing values and interests upended, leaders should, therefore, effect change slowly and incrementally, and humbly strive to leave the organisation in a little better condition than when he or she first entered it.       

Replace pleasure-seeking for meaning and purpose. While comfort and security are basic human drives, and their fulfilment does bring happiness to us, the pursuit of virtue yields the greatest satisfaction in the long term. The perennial struggle between the darkness and the light within us is the heroic journey that defines all human life. We give our lives shape when we struggle against sins like prejudice and self-centeredness and discover the greater joy that goodness brings. And this fight is irrelevant to our station. In the words of David Brooks, author of The Road to Character, ‘it doesn’t matter if you work at a hedge fund or a charity serving the poor. There are heroes and schmucks in both worlds.’

Out of this daily struggle we build character. The more good we are able to achieve, the more good we become. It gets easier to make the right choices, and goodness becomes an indelible part of our natural disposition. We begin to shine like a beacon of light for others to admire and to follow. By contrast, the more we let darkness fester, i.e., the more we make selfish, cruel, and haphazard choices, the darker and more incoherent our life becomes, and it will eventually fall to pieces: you will be enslaved by your passions, unable to stop directing mischief toward innocent others. You will become a pathetic excuse for a human being.       

How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors
have been: how gloriously different are the saints.

C. S. Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia

Embrace humility. Having a sober and accurate assessment of one’s place in the universe quietens the ego and prepares us to tackle our daily struggles with calm acceptance. In addition to general humility, we should also embrace intellectual humility. The world is far older and more complex than our nascent brains can ever hope to properly wrap around. Even the web of cause and effect we witness in our surroundings and within our own minds is so inscrutable that we should be cautious about abstract theories that purport to universally apply across any or all of them. By contrast,  embrace the wisdom of knowing how to act in the absence of perfect knowledge.  

Organize your life around a meaningful vocation. Work that serves our hedonistic pleasures, i.e., to please ourselves or others, or to chase after money, attention, and power for their own sakes, will prove unsatisfactory in the long run. Our ambitions and expectations will never stop growing. They will lead to obsessive behaviours and multiple dead ends. And we’ll be dead before we are fully sated. Find work that you intrinsically enjoy because you are (or have the potential to be) good at it and because it is meaningful in some way. Consider what is life asking from you? How can your talents and interests be funnelled in some vocation that will make the world a better place?   

As you work out your purpose in life through the lens of character, you will become mature. Accept that you may never have wealth or fame. This is because character is not correlated with intelligence or any unique talent that would enable you to compete effectively in the rat race. Character isn’t comparative either. It’s about becoming a better person than you once were before; about being dependable and straight in difficult times or times of temptation. Character isn’t about charisma too. It does not glitter or make you a celebrity. A person of character makes decisions based on an internal moral and ethical compass, not on the reactions of admirers and detractors.    

Recognise people of character and associate with them. You can easily identify people who show that they can finish what they start, work effectively in teams, and create things of value for the benefit of others. You can also easily identify people who repeat the same negative patterns of behaviour without ever learning from their mistakes or changing: Perpetual grievances with anything and everything, frustrated plans and projects, indignations that never seem to galvanise ameliorative action, and hair triggers that lead to the apocalypse.  

When hiring in the workplace, choose potential hires based on their competence and character. If standard practices are lax, or if the person in charge of hiring is irrational, companies would hire charming people, people with good impression management skills but who have demonstrated little substance, people who know how to feed insecurities, or who pose little challenge or threat, without realizing that they are doing so. Avoid situations like this as far as possible. People of character, when looking for a job, think long term and will not make decisions based on how much money they can make, how they deserve to be treated, how much they can slack off, or how much attention and prestige the job title brings them. Often, such desires lead to career dead ends, creating unhappy people whose misguided dreams have been stymied, and who now are in a position to bring mischief on unsuspecting others.   

Be devoted to truth and reality. Have a tolerant attitude toward people, accepting them as facts, rather than as pawns. Know yourself thoroughly. Examine your emotions to their roots. These may require outside help from friends, family, from personality assessments, and even from therapists of one kind or another. Build empathy, first by relinquishing the comforting yet false notion that you understand other people easily and can effectively judge and categorise them. Not only do you have biases that make it easy for you to misjudge others, but other people also wear masks in different situations, sometimes without fully realizing that they’re doing it, and it’s easy to mistake those masks for reality. Furthermore, it is common to assume that other people are more like us than they actually are; that they share the same values or are motivated in the same way.

Like a dog that returns to his vomit is a fool that repeats his folly

The Bible

By contrast, start by assuming you know nothing about someone and begin to discover them slowly for who they are, not who you want them to be. You may be surprised by what you uncover. For example, when communicating with people at work, notice patterns of behaviour formed from habit. You can be sure that this kind of behaviour, good or bad, will be repeated. Look for signs of character: resilience over adversity, adaptability, etc. and steer clear from people who don’t possess them.

We are poorly equipped to gauge the character of the people we deal with. Their public image, the reputation that precedes them, easily mesmerizes us. We are captivated by appearances. If they surround themselves with some alluring myth […] we want to believe in it. Instead of determining people’s character—their ability to work with others, to keep to their promises, to remain strong in adverse circumstances—we choose to work with or hire people based on their glittering résumé, their intelligence, and their charm. But even a positive trait such as intelligence is worthless if the person also happens to be of weak or dubious character. And so, because of our blind spot, we suffer under the irresolute leader, the micromanaging boss, the conniving partner. This is the source of endless tragedies in history, our pattern as a species. At all costs, you must alter your perspective. Train yourself to ignore the front that people display, the myth that surrounds them, and instead plumb their depths for signs of their character. This can be seen in the patterns they reveal from their past, the quality of their decisions, how they have chosen to solve problems, how they delegate authority and work with others, and countless other signs. A person of strong character is like gold—rare but invaluable. They can adapt, learn, and improve themselves. Since your success depends on the people you work with and for, make their character the primary object of your attention. You will spare yourself the misery of discovering their character when it is too late

Robert Greene, The Laws of Human Nature

Looking for signs of character isn’t easy, and it takes time too. We typically judge people based on the position they occupy, their reputation, and other external sources of information that surrounds them, but not the persons themselves. A successful person isn’t necessarily generous, intelligent and good. Not only are they as flawed as anyone else, they may also be good at masking their own incompetence (by using others). Likewise, an outwardly religious person or a progressive political campaigner aren’t necessarily paragons of morality. They could be seedy, manipulative, and thoroughly intolerant tyrants at heart.

You can see eloquent signs of people’s character in how they handle everyday affairs. If they are late in finishing simple assignments, they will be late with larger projects. If they become irritated by little inconveniences, they will tend to crumble under larger ones. If they are forgetful on small matters and inattentive to details, they will be so on more important ones

Greene

Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much

The Bible

Detecting and relying on those with good character will pay off in the long run. Warren Buffet’s success at investing is partly based on his judgements of the CEOs whose companies he chooses to invest in. He strives to see demonstrations of their resilience, their dependability, and their self-reliance. Franklin Roosevelt did something similar when he prioritized character over beauty in his choice of a wife. He came to admire Eleanor’s openness to new experiences and her determination and could see how she would be a good choice as a spouse for the long term. History suggests that it was indeed a wise choice.  

As you move forward along the road to developing character, you will naturally move farther and farther away from the median and hence be vulnerable to censure from those who wish to pull you back into the centre of gravity. Some criticisms are worth listening to and incorporating. Others will come from places of envy. These criticisms tend to be expressed with unnecessary emotion and can be rather vague. They also tend to have a gaslighting property to them, as if they are designed to make you doubt who you are becoming rather than clear the path for you to become the person you aspire to. Instead of becoming defensive or doubting yourself, see unconstructive and negative opinions as markers that you are moving in the right direction and use that knowledge to bolster your sense of purpose.

Find encouragement from the words of C. S. Lewis, literature professor and author of The Chronicles of Narnia, who believed that becoming good and recognising others who are also becoming good has its rewards:

Every now and then one meets them. Their very voices and faces are different from ours: stronger, quieter, happier, more radiant. They begin where most of us leave off. They are, I say, recognisable; but you must know what to look for. They will not be very like the idea of ‘religious people’ which you have formed from your general reading. They do not draw attention to themselves. You tend to think that you are being kind to them when they are really being kind to you. They love you more than other men do, but they need you less. (We must get over wanting to be needed: in some goodish people, specially women, that is the hardest of all temptations to resist.) They will usually seem to have a lot of time: you will wonder where it comes from. When you have recognised one of them, you will recognise the next one much more easily. And I strongly suspect (but how should I know?) that they recognise one another immediately and infallibly, across every barrier of colour, sex, class, age, and even of creeds. In that way, to become holy is rather like joining a secret society. To put it at the very lowest, it must be great fun.