CHARACTER: (Antonym) Corruption.

If you believe that others travel through life without the same wear and tear you have experienced, think again.  And if you think you can’t build great character from dealing with adversity, think again.  Character is what you exhibit when you are faced with adversity, not what you get when it arrives.

Your thoughts create your character.  When your anxiety is someone's fault, you have placed a bomb at the feet of your mold.  By the way, the mold you are carving will someday become your true character.  Your selfishness will light the fuse to ignite that bomb.  Learn to smell the stink of selfishness.  This world is not all about you, did you know that?

When adversity weaves its way to your front door, an explosion of flaws will surround your wagons and try to destroy your character.  It will succeed when you remain selfish.  What we are and what we become in the face of adversity is exhibited by how well we deal with what we do and do not like.  Character is formed from within.  Someone else cannot hand character to us.  Money yes, character, no.

Borrowing is an act performed by all humans.  We borrow time from others without asking for their permission.  We borrow ideas and words.  We borrow strength from others and often times forget to return the favor.  You can borrow intelligence, brains and wisdom.  But you cannot borrow character.

Character is what you stand for.  Character is made by the convictions you steadfastly protect.  Character is what you are in the dark, by yourself.  And if someone ever speaks ill of you, live strongly enough so that no one will ever believe when others falsely accuse you.  They will believe your character long before they believe your accusations.

The greatest test of your character is what you would do if you knew no one would ever know.  As internal as this is, every act, helps combine the projection of your character.  Yet only one single act can destroy it.  Fragile isn’t it?  That is why you must protect your character with all your might.

CONCENTRATION: (Antonym) Ignore.

Two minutes ago I had a thought that would change the way I understand things.  But I was not paying very much attention to it so I can keep thinking the same as before.

Thinking about one thing too deeply hurts the muscles in my head.  I can actually feel them starting to stretch and pain becomes slightly noticeable.  Feeling my head with my hands makes me think most of my head is like a hard-shelled bone.  How can a bone hurt by just thinking hard about one single subject?

If I run a mile, the tissues of muscles jiggle hard and tighten with each step.  You can see them.  They flex and twist and grip and bounce.  I can understand how these muscles would hurt after a mile work out.  But the bone-like shell that holds in my brains…how can a measure of deep thinking begin to hurt my brain so much?

When you are confused about an important subject, study it deeper.  When you do not know enough about an important thing, and you are not concerned about it, you will not concentrate on what you need to find out.

Conquer the desire to skip concentration.  Learn to hurt the mind more often.  The muscles of the brain are real.  They need to be pressed into action.  Pressing them with concentration will hurt just enough to produce a better reward.

Centralize the concentration by working the brain muscles with a single effort of a single series of thought patterns on one simple subject.  Pick the lone subject.  Arrange the thought patterns to involve only that subject.  Now work the brain on those patterns until the head begins to hurt.  This is true concentration.  There is an obvious reason why many of us do not know anything about this subject.

CONFIDENCE: (Antonym) Insecurity.

Arrogance is not confidence.  Arrogance is usually a mask protecting a more serious fear.  This is not confidence.

Confidence is not the inclusion of fear, but rather, the omission in the management of fear.

The youngest child of three toddlers was watching everyone play at the side of the swimming pool.  She was noticing how much fun each of her older sisters were having, as they would swim around in the water.  She had on her float devices, attached on each one of her arms.  As her sisters continued to laugh and splash in the pool, she decided to run and jump in.  She did not know she could not swim.  But even though that was a challenge to others, she made a break for the water.  There was absolutely no fear in her actions.  She was completely confident that she could be enjoying the water as much as her sisters were.

Confidence may be linked to blind faith.  A lack of knowledge may be associated with pure confidence.  But on the other hand, confidence can come from the sisters in the pool who had knowledge that they could swim.  She can borrow their knowledge or they can use knowledge for themselves.  All contribute to the idea of confidence.

Confidence is the feeling you have before you know better.

The best way to acquire confidence is to do exactly what you are afraid to do.

Skill, knowledge and confidence are formidable enemies if you do not have them on your side.

Confidence is a thing not to be coerced to do.  Men cannot be forced into trusting it.

CONSISTENCE: (Antonym) Random.

A person who spends a great deal of energy ignoring the consistent patterns of truth will eventually find themselves at the crossroads of double negative choices.  Sooner or later two choices will be pitted against each other and without a consistent foundation of the acceptance of consistency, one of these choices will rub the other one wrong.  True success is boring.

It does not matter how true you are trying to be, you will be damned from one of these sides if your truth is inconsistent.  However, if consistency is protected at the cost of truth, a collapse of your support system from others will occur.  Your leadership will die.

Being true to irregular interests instead of consistent to a single purpose, is also a poor choice.  Most fail to recognize what to be true to.  Consistency teaches them what is true.  Those who fail to try consistency may actually contradict themselves more often than those who try to be “just” consistent.

 

The true man only professes what he truly practices.  If he is not consistent in his practices, he cannot be consistent in what he professes.  He will appear inconsistent to others he endeavors to share with his time.  They will eventually learn to distrust his actions and stay away from growing too close.  Being true and consistent is a combination that adds value to his life.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.               Ralph Waldo Emerson

We need to set our course by the stars and not by the lights of every passing ship.          Omar Bradley

The fellow who is consistently rowing the boat, stoke after stroke, line after line, is not likely to rock the boat and tip it over.