There are those moments in life that fall under the old saying 'building character', but what is character? Is it how you act around others? Is it the way you respond to situations beyond your control? Is it how you take criticism and praise? The idea of character and character building moments have changed in the last last fifty years, even more in the last twenty to be fair to how the world is today.

What Character Is

Character is all of those things. Character is what defines you and makes you the person that you are, inside and out. It helps you put on an act when you have to and allows you to break down your own walls when you need help. Character makes you who you are and over the years your character develops into something that everyone recognizes you. To have 'good character' means you meet everyone's approval and you're doing something right in your life.

But what about those that get labeled with 'bad character'? Those that have bad attitudes toward life and authority, or even just have bad habits that they won't break away from. Does that make them bad overall? Even those with 'good character' does that make them perfect? Those questions are just some of the ones that eventually appear throughout time and make people question everything they know.

The Truth of Character

The fact is that character is neither good nor bad. It get's labeled that way because of how society works today and how people see one another. But character is simply what defines a person. It is what makes them who they are. If they have bad habits, that doesn't make them have bad character; they could be the nicest person in the world. They were just labeled because of how they act and what they do.

Good character is the same; it doesn't mean that the person that has been labeled as such is perfect and has done no wrong. It could even be that, behind the act that their character developed, they could be the cruelest person in the world. That doesn't mean all the people labeled as 'good' are bad, but it also means that all the people labeled 'bad' aren't good.

What To See

The fact is, keeping labels on things like character is what makes it harder to trust people in this world. By seeing them as only good or bad, you fail to see the good or bad that is actually within the person. You have to decide what you see, because labels hurt. They make the person think that they are only as good as what they have been labeled and eventually they stop trying to do better.

Character building moments happen all the time, to kids and to adults, and it's up to you to decide if you're going to take the risk and build your character or if you're going to let someone else step in and do it for you. You have to decide what it is you need to see.