My Mind’s Musings

I wrote this article as an opening article for a series of articles that I am currently doing in our base newspaper on Character development.

Many people in this world are characters, either funny, witty, weird or unique. That is not the kind of character that I am going to discuss today. I want to talk about people’s character. Where does character come from and what does it mean to have character (as compared to being a character)? The dictionary defines character as moral or ethical strength; but it also carries the idea of a person’s attributes, traits and abilities. This would lead us to the general idea that character is the sum of a person’s ethical and moral traits that define them as a person.
If character is determined by ethical and moral traits, then when we try to determine good or bad character, we have to decide whether their actions and attitudes exhibit that good character or not. If we have to look at actions, traits and attitudes in order to determine character, how do we come to a consensus on what are good traits and what are bad ones? While at first, it seems like a nearly impossible task to come up with a universal list, when we begin to look at various lists and sources of character training, it becomes a more manageable task. Most people in the United States would list some sort of religious beliefs as underlying their character development. One fact that becomes readily clear when you look at any religion, whether it is Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, or Wicca, is that there are many similar traits that are considered desirable in each of them. Where the lists copy each other are good places to begin the search for universally honorable character traits. In the Navy, you also have those core values that are taught as foundational in the character of a good Sailor – honor, courage, and commitment. The Marine Corps teaches 14 leadership traits encompassed in the acronym JJ DID TIE BUCKLE (ask a Marine, they should be able to explain). In Galatians Chapter 5 in the Bible, we find a list of traits called the fruit of the Spirit, which for a Christian, are areas of character that improve as the Holy Spirit changes our lives.
While the lists can be varied, we could find a generally agreed upon list. One that I am going to focus on discussing is put together from polls of incoming freshmen at the US Naval Academy. The list, that was generally agreed on by the majority of incoming ethics classes, was as follows: courage, wisdom, justice, humanity, temperance, and transcendence. These are words, which carry a lot of different meanings and incorporate many other character traits within each one. My plan is to write an article dealing with each trait and attempt to explain the importance of incorporating it into our lives. Whether you are in a position of leadership or not, you should be concerned with developing character in yourself and others under you and around you.
A discussion of character cannot take place apart from spirituality, which the Navy recognizes in OPNAVINST 1730.1D, where it encourages character education of a religious nature. While you do not have to be religious to have good character, strongly held and practiced religious beliefs normally reflect strong moral character. Therefore, the more that I practice my faith as a Christian, the better character I reflect; and the greatest example of character for me to follow is Jesus Christ. While not all would agree with this, I encourage you to think through what you look at as good character and bad character and begin to reflect on what you can do to improve character in yourself and others. The result will be less problem issues from “characters,” and a better work environment created by people of character.