Character

A Poem by NicoleKailey

This isn't exactly a poem...It's an essay I had to write wherein I describe what character means to me. However I lean from prose and toward poetry and so it found its way here.

Character

The impetus, driving force, and call to action of human beings across the globe, character, defines each and every person by outlining those values and sentiments that inspire them to action. Ingrained in the makeup of what colors our souls, character, lights a road of movement and path toward righteous behavior by clarifying the intensity of one’s, as the Josephson Institute so aptly delineated, six pillars. This institute broke down character into trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship declaring that any man who exists within the height of these six spectrums shall be a man who, consequently, inhabits the height of the character spectrum. While I note the importance and strength of these components of man I believe character describes more than one’s duties to others, as I interpret most of these do, but one’s duties to one’s own self; I believe character seeks something more human than obligation, pushing forward to lay hands on passion of intimate ethics.

Character involves me personally each day as I weigh every option that finds route through my hours or mind; I instantly and incessantly compare it to my values and virtues and progress accordingly. I hold myself and my word accountable to those who take care to stand alongside or listen not only because I believe loyalty to be everlasting currency but because I crave to hear honest words whether they be others or my own. Respect plagues my heart by reminding me in proud moments of all that many kinds that fill freeways and all the many beings that have journeyed lives and time beyond what my isolated mind can fathom; with respect as a passenger in all encounters I see that though my life touches many others the majority of them will speed past traversing spans of loss and celebration entirely separate from my own and that they live for their route as I proceed mine. If I am to hold my life to any significance than I cannot hand any part of it over to another, and thus, understand that responsibility�"for every thought, word, and action�"is a vital piece of my story and that to sacrifice it to another degrades not only my narrative but that others as well. Fairness, I believe, is a word that encompasses more than justice and works to transcend an eye for eye to account for a lifetime of circumstance and extended understanding and is crucial to seeing the world in a navigable balance. If all of the aforementioned are what, at first seem to breathe, at first, for the sake of others and then reveal their personal benefits than caring must be the converse; any matured person accepts that caring is the most significant piece that we keep for ourselves so that it may lighten and lighten, in their distinct definitions, our hearts so we may share these bright and unweighted organs, and all that moves in them, with others to seek connection, not because empathy is right for them but because intimacy is a foundation upon which we build our understanding of human nature. Citizenship, the sixth and final pillar, as described by the Josephson Institute, is, “to obey laws in good faith and work to improve the well-being of other citizens.” To me citizenship is more than the hours I spend volunteering or the steps I take throughout the extra mile to achieve leadership but each and every individual effort that I take to understand, and convey this understanding with others, that there is no pride in moving alone, there is no grace in sole success, the only progress worth progress are the extra miles to which we advance others. Their exists an intimate and unwavering bond between all members of the human race and this connection not only obligates but obliges us to work for the neighbors within this nation and the brothers throughout the planet and to see that our time’s, effort’s, and purpose’s meaning is compounded if we share it.