Character of how to work on it

The first thing that helps us work on our character is humble self-knowledge. We must not think that we have already achieved what we desire. Namely, we all desire to be characteristic people, but we are still far from the ideal. We want to be honest, but we are tempted daily to lie, to distort the truth, to avoid the truth. We want to be reliable, trustworthy, principled, but we still tend to be compliant, to compromise.

We must never feel at the finish line again. Indeed, some of our vices do not show does not mean that we have already defeated them. It can only mean that we did not get the opportunity to show. It is easy for a person who lives alone and does not meet anyone to think of himself as non-conflicting. Maybe it’s because of the conflicting nature that she lives alone. I also assume that you have that painful experience: as soon as the temptation to despise others for failing to do something comes, we will fall at the same time in a relatively short time. And this is the best medicine for our pride. The Lord needs to humble us sometimes. That is why it is important to beg – “Hold me, Lord, for if you do not hold me, I will betray you worse than Judas!”. Most people who are convinced that something cannot happen to them are in great danger of falling. On the contrary, people who admit to being vulnerable in an area are careful and stand up.

The second tool to achieve character is the ability to hear and accept the truth about yourself. We do not just proclaim the truth, but we should also have the courage to hear the truth if we are in character. Here we are also proud to think that we have no problem with that. Sometimes I hear a statement: Calm down, let anyone tell me straight out what is interfering with me! We may accept some things, but as soon as the criticism touches on the things we rely on, it hurts us deeply. Of course, we do not have to let this be known, but it will manifest itself in anger, uncertainty, or the fact that a complex of inferiority will grow in us. It is, therefore, necessary to have real friends who can sensitively adjust the mirror for us. Therefore, it is necessary to have a constant confessor whom we trust and are willing to open our insides to God before him to judge the sincerity of my motives. Namely, infidelity, divorce, alcoholism, and all such matters do not begin with the fall itself, but long before that, only because things are denied and ignored. It’s not that serious yet, because it’s just occasionally some extra cup.

Another tool to achieve character is to take responsibility for your own life. A character person is aware of his talents and shortcomings. He takes responsibility for the moments when, according to them, he lives, but also for those when he fails. We must take responsibility for our feelings and actions. That’s why it’s not true that you were angry with me, but the truth is that I was angry. The other may have done something to provoke me, but I decide how I will react to it. If I allow myself to be disturbed by his behavior, I become his slave. We live in a time when someone else is responsible for everything bad, and we just complain about how we were wronged. We harm people immensely by making them victims. The pain story can be sold well; it shows how unjust society is and how my group is discriminated against. This causes us, instead of looking to the future and asking how to deal with it, to look to the past, mourn our wounds and ask how to get something out of it. That’s why it happens that a 60-year-old man comes to the rectory to ask for some help and starts his story with this: “You know, I’m from an orphanage …”

Maybe not so extreme, but we each carry some of the injuries that affect us. And that is why we tend to slip into self-justification. If I had an easier childhood, if I had a better boss, if they paid more attention to me, if someone noticed me, if they loved me more at home, if children listened more, if I had fewer robots, if I had as many opportunities as young people today … That may be all true, but one that will help nothing but self-pity. The question is not what if it were, but what I would do with it. Nobody has it ideal in life, but the difference is whether I solve how it is impossible and how it is all wrong or solve what I do with it. To take responsibility for one’s own life is to stop looking for the culprit, to stop drilling in oneself and to analyze oneself, and instead to work on inner healing and the ability to forgive.

Everyone is responsible before God, before himself, and before others to quality his spiritual, emotional, and physical life. Blaming the quality of your life on others cannot be justified. We must take responsibility for our feelings for our actions. Of course, everyone indeed received a different amount of talent. But I will not be accountable to God for what I have done with what I have not received, but for what I have done.