“If wealth is lost, nothing is lost.
If health is lost, something is lost.
If character is lost, everything is lost!”
Value is a decision not to do anything that hurts you or others — physically, mentally, or otherwise.
- If a father works 12 hours a day, in the name of sacrifice for his family, he is hurting himself. He is also hurting his children by not spending quality time with his family. This is not value-based living.
- If a daughter accepts to marry someone based on her parent’s advice, to satisfy their wishes, even though she knows that she’s not going to be happy with the marriage, she is not only hurting herself, but also her future and the family’s happiness. This is not value-based living.
Sacrificing one’s personal joy for the sake of others goes against the principles of value-based living. You should think from a long-term perspective. You should not hurt yourself to make others happy. It is not different from a tyrant hurting others to make himself happy.
Find a third way where both you and others are happy and at peace with each other. It takes a little bit of ingenuity which is why living a value-based life is not easy.
Telling the truth is often considered the right thing to do.
However, imagine a situation where a murderer is chasing an innocent victim and you spot her trying to hide from the murderer.
- Would you tell the murderer where she’s hiding?
- Would you say the truth for the sake of truth itself?
- Or, would you protect her from eventual death?
Tiruvalluvar, the celebrated Tamil poet and philosopher in his magnum opus Thirukkural wrote,
“A lie that saves a life is better than a truth that can kill someone.”
Truth is relative. Just like any other value. Use it according to the situation.
As Wayne Dyer says, “If you have the choice between being right and being kind, choose being kind.” So before you make a value judgement, understand the situation and choose the best decision, not the ideal one.
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If value is the moral standard, then character is your ability to abide by it. Often your character is judged at the worst of times.
You know your best friend, when in need. Similarly, you know your best stance, when you are in a crisis. In fact, all your preparation for character is to face such a situation and not to give in.
Compromise, many people do. They give into temptations; they lower their benchmark and lose their character. No wonder it is hard to find people of high moral standards and character.
In the name of convenience, we bend rules.
In the light of comfort, we take the easy way out.
We are ready to bribe a police officer to get away now than to make the trip to the court to pay the penalty. We don’t see the drastic implication of such a simple act. And we end up blaming the government, the system, the politicians for all the wrong things around you.
We are the system. We are the government. The current proliferation of the corruptions and system-rigging all escalated from such simple acts of compromises.
“True character is doing the right thing when no one is watching.” — Shiv Khera
Yes it is difficult, that is why we are talking about it. If it were easy, I wouldn’t have written a chapter about it.
Character building starts at home. What you teach your child, what you have been taught as a child all lead you to make your being and your character.
Every time there is a moral decision to make, I always look up to my father. Despite his skills, integrity and hard work, he never earned big, he never ‘made’ it, in the conventional definition. People call him a man who doesn’t know how to live. In fact, he is in his 60s and yet he refuses to retire. He doesn’t want to depend on his sons to feed him and his wife (my mother).
While many may not come to seek monetary support, but every family issue in the neighbourhood, every communal problem that we may have comes to seek my father’s wisdom. His uncompromising honesty had made him the community’s wise man, and garnered him a leadership position in all such undertakings. While he may not have the biggest house in the villages nor the largest bank account, he has the warmest heart ever. That is why he commands more respect than the rich millionaires in our village.
If you want to become a millionaire by all means be one. But in the process don’t lose respect from your kins.
Don’t lose your tribe in the race to the peak.
There is a proverbial adage in our village.
“A man is judged not by the breadth of the land he holds, but by the number of people who attend his funeral.”
That’s the respect a man earns of his value and his moral being, that’s love that he has cultivated through his character.
So, as you strive to become a man of success, don’t compromise your values and character.
