How to have an impeccable character?

How to have an impeccable character? Your character or personality is your currency in the real world and on social media, anytime you have got to deal with people. Physical appearance and bodily health are also highly important, as mentioned in Tim´s post “Train your body”, but it is your character which will do the heavy lifting in the long run. Still mind and body only go together so don´t neglect one of them. When you decide to build your character, you have to just start because you only become a certain person when start to act in the way this person would.

Humans, over the centuries, have written down character traits which make up a morally and ethically good person. Every era has defined their own virtues. Plato has defined the platonic or cardinal virtues. The Romans had their own virtues. Charlemagne published the knightly virtues after his coronation as Holy Roman Emperor. Prussia, Christianity, Islam or Buddhism have defined character traits they deemed important. When we want to create our own character, we can take these as our guide on how to act in order to create an impeccable character. There are a few virtues which were mentioned along history and among different cultures so that we can see take them as our fundamental virtues. This isn´t an objective topic and you can have your subjective traits, virtues and believes. If you want to really delve into this topic I recommend to read the Wikipedia article on virtues. It gives a glimpse of what human’s think is a good character. The Romans alone had 24 virtues so there´s more than enough material to start building your character. There are also traits which are classified as secondary virtues like diligence or punctuality and they may be equally important in a good character but won´t be mentioned by me. Virtuous behaviour is also not black and white but more of a grey area there is no perfectly virtues person and this probably isn´t desirable anyway because it can interfere with human desires. If you believe celibacy is an important virtue people who have sex won´t be morally good. But if you create your own impeccable character based on these virtues and choose them to your liking and your believe on morality you can become more virtuous, which is a desirable goal. Building an impeccable character is no goal but a journey it will never be finished but will go on forever ever changing and adapting. Don´t let perfect be the enemy of good. Only by acting virtuous will you become virtuous.

Wisdom

The first common virtue is wisdom. Wisdom is defined as “the ability to use your knowledge and experience to make good decisions and judgments” or “the right use of knowledge”. This does not only include intelligence but rationality and common sense too. It is sometimes translated with prudence meaning the ability to discipline yourself with reason. I too believe wisdom to be an important virtue because it is the base of your thoughts and actions, the operating system of the mind and fundamental to the day to day tasks. Moreover, should wisdom include the pursuit of knowledge. If we know more we become a better human being. Wisdom, the ability to use knowledge, requires knowledge and knowledge requires wisdom to be used.

Justice

Sometimes deemed the most important of the cardinal virtue’s justice is all about our moral compass and the regulation of relationships. As with all virtue’s justice covers a variety of traits. I would define justice as our moral compass and selfless behaviour. Justice is respect of others and to ensure that respect is equally paid to all humans. If we have found our moral compass we should inspire morality and justice in the people around us either by behaving just ourselves or in standing up for the people who experience injustice. There is no right answer to morality and it can have differences between cultures. Immanuel Kant´s “categorical imperative” will guide us to an answer. "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." Or easier the golden rule:

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”

Justice is the most important virtue because it includes every other virtue. Virtues are a rule or trait by which you should act and the goal of them is to become a morally good person. In other terms, a just person. For me justice is more about selfless action and giving yourself to the world. Therefore, am I building my moral compass on traits like love, kindness and charity. For you this definition might be different and maybe your virtues will be different too.

"there are... two kinds of injustice: the one, on the part of those who inflict wrong, the other on the part of those who, when they can, do not shield from wrong those upon whom it is being inflicted." So "he who does not prevent or oppose wrong, if he can, is just as guilty of wrong as if he deserted his parents or his friends or his country" - Cicero

Courage and Strength

“Courage (also called bravery or valour) is the choice and willingness to confront agony, pain, danger, uncertainty, or intimidation. Valour is courage or bravery, especially in battle.” - Wikipedia

There is also moral courage when you act rightly despite social opposition, shame, or discouragement as well as patience and perseverance which are aspects of courage/fortitude too.

Courage is a cardinal virtue because it gives us the ability to transcend mental hurdles to reach our goals. Nearly everything worthy of pursuit is hard and requires courage, at least in the beginning. In his recent podcast with David Goggins, Andrew Huberman talked about a part of the brain called the “Anterior Mid-Cingulate Cortex” (aMCC) a region which literally grows by doing things you don´t want to do and vice versa. Furthermore, Huberman adds that scientist believe that the aMCC is not only part of the will power but as the “seat of the will to live”. Imagine this when you expose yourself to challenges and express courage. Your brain will grow and you develop a stronger will power and sense to live. The only way to grow your will power is by doing the things which suck.

Courage is the thing which makes you ask the girl or boy out. It may be the only obstacle for a loving relationship. At the end of December last year, I faced my fears as I asked a girl I liked whether she wanted to go on a walk together. My heart beat fast and I felt fear but I knew this would be my only chance ever, two days before the holidays. I showed courage I faced the ugly side of reality and asked her out. Now a little more than a month later I´m in a beautiful relationship with this girl. I would have never had the chance if I backed down after facing fear. But I gained a lot by jumping over my shadow a beautiful girl at my side and the eternal victory over my head. This victory is something which will be stored in my mind for ever and I can come back to it and draw power from it for ever. I practice boxing and recently the coaches started to include more sparring to the training sessions. In the first sessions I felt frightened and didn´t want to attend sparring. My mind feared getting beat for 3min straight exhausting myself till I´ve got nothing more to give. But I knew I won´t get better without sparring strong opponents so I said fuck it and entered the ring over and over. I willingly chose stronger opponents to challenge myself and to practice courage. As expected I got beat up but I dealt out equally. Now I run around with new black eyes after each training session. I like them, they are my trophy for practicing courage taking the action necessary to become better in the face of a stronger opponent. There is no bliss like the feeling after a sparring session where you got hit hard but you also surpassed your previous performance and gave everything you had. In the end it was always worth to face the pain instead of quitting.

I believe strength is an important trait if we want to build an impeccable character. Strength is a universal currency, if you are muscular or successful in martial arts you will automatically be respected by other people and they think twice before challenging you. Physical strength or bodily capability is the foundation for any endeavour. Tim outlined this in his post “train your body” so I won´t go into detail. But we want a holistic approach on strength not only physical capability but also mental strength. This comes from practicing courage and temperance but also from morality and kindness. We want to use our strength as a force of good in this world helping and defending the weak. We have to be peaceful but peace is only ensured by strength and violence. Nobody will respect you if you aren´t physically capable of violence but you want to ensure peace and protect yourself and others. Violence is the only universal language but we should have a strong moral compass to ensure we use it for the right reason. You might never need to use violence or show your strength but you can never be sure about it and if you end up in a situation where fighting is the only way of not getting robbed or killed you will be grateful to be strong and to know how to be violent. As always, we have to be guided by reason and referring to the second virtue, our action has to be just.

Temperance

Temperance is voluntary self-restraint and moderation. This includes emotional control, restraint from arrogance, restraint from excess and overindulgence and overall pleasure-seeking behaviour. Temperance is a virtue about the discipline of our desires.

“A person who exhibits self-control wisely refrains from giving in to unwise desires. A person who exhibits temperance does not have unwise desires in the first place because they have wisely shaped their character in such a way that their desires are proper ones.” - Wikipedia

This is an important distinction because we not only seek to control our urges but to get rid of them entirely. Self-control is ultimately limited, discipline takes effort and we can only withstand so long until we give in to our deepest desires. If we formed habits over a long period of time like overeating or porn usage and excessive masturbation and we want to relief ourselves from these habits self-control won´t bring us far. Whether you engage in pleasuring habits is a question of character. Some live their whole life´s without drugs others are addicted and some addicts come clean. The difference between them is their attitude. I have watched porn for a long time and only stopped the habit after cleansing my character from it blocking all access to it and practicing self-control. But the distinction is that I combined temperance and self-control because I knew, if I just relied on self-control and discipline I wouldn´t have made it because it´s extremely difficult to fight your subconscious desires, the demons in your head. You have to make it part of your character whether you do something or don´t do something.

Temperance is more important than ever because we live in a world which is full of instant gratification, pleasure seeking behaviour and emotional impulses. Drugs, casual sex and over stimulation are the norm. If we follow these subconscious desires we become a boat which gets tossed around by the waves unable to steer to our destination or worse crashing against the rocks. Restraint allows us to follow our rational, conscious thoughts being free not to submit to the slavery of impulsive, lustful behaviour. Pleasure is selfish, if we prioritize it we may hurt other people or hurt ourselves. When practicing temperance and restraint we practice wisdom. In the end we can go back to enjoying life and the natural pleasures it brings but, in a frame, where we choose to do certain activities and how they are naturally intended as well as gaining pleasure from life, work or a sunset.

Temperance is expressed through different characteristics like modesty, humility, emotional control and chastity. Each of these can be practiced with awareness meditation and most important the attitude to embody these character traits.

Emotional control is equally important because of the above reason. It does not mean to suppress emotions but to choose whether to act on them or not.

“Control your temper. Remember, you can measure the size of a person by what makes him or her angry.” - Dale Carnegie How to win friends & influence people

Chastity is maybe the most delicate of the characteristics and today seen as weird or old fashioned. It is mostly referred to as sexual abstinence either until marriage or no sexual activities at all. Unimaginable in modern days isn´t it, except for the few people how are asexual or live as monks. In our modern life´s casual sex is the norm. We dull our senses in mindless self-destructing activities which serve no reason except increasing our pleasure. The availability of casual sex has negative impact on various parts of our life. I have peers who casually go out at the weekends to drink away the “stress” they had during the school week and hook up with a girl for a one-night-stand to satisfy their cravings. The problem is that the modern era has mixed the natural human emotions and cravings with highly stimulating fake gratification methods. Humans crave love and companionship but we get casual sex with people we don´t know or care about.

I am not an advocate for waiting until marriage to have sex but I would only practice it in a relationship with a partner I deeply care about because I believe sex has the purpose of reproduction and of strengthening the love with your partner. So, chastity for me would be restraint from all sexual acts except if they serve the purpose above.

“Abstain from casual sex and particularly avoid sexual intercourse before you get married. This may sound prudish or old-fashioned, but it is a time-tested way by which we demonstrate respect for ourselves and others. Sex is not a game. It gives rise to very real enduring emotional and practical consequences. To ignore this is to debase yourself, and to disregard the significance of human relationships.” - Epictetus

Epictetus sums my view on sex up quite nicely and he isn´t the only great man in history to advocate chastity. Benjamin Franklin too has chastity or refrain from sexual activities as one of his thirteen virtues. Sex isn´t about pleasure but the highest form of sharing love with another human being. And as Epictetus said, it is about respect towards other people because hook up culture is just masturbation with another human’s body.

“The way a man penetrates the world should be the same way he penetrates his woman: not merely for personal gain or pleasure, but to magnify love, openness, and depth.” David Deida

This also includes any form of masturbation. Intimacy is designed to spread love it is literally called “to make love”. If we believe in this purpose of sex and intimacy it can become a virtue itself for love is one of the fourteen knightly virtues.

I have put the focus on bodily temptations but we have to be restraint in our mind too. We have to practice humility, forgiveness and kindness. Why? Because it makes us a more pleasant person to be around. If we let our negative emotions run free we become resentful, our own mood gets darkened and we spread negativity in the world. If we practice temperance we can transform our emotions and choose to give love and positivity instead. I´ve already talked about humility in my post “Ego is the enemy” nevertheless I will once again stress the importance of humility.

“Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” – Jesus

This was an outline how to have character integrity and core virtues for an impeccable character. Feel free to choose virtues you like and believe in also feel free to change your definition according to your believes. Morality and virtue have no objective truth but I believe if humans have valued the same core character traits for over 2000 years across different cultures and religions sometimes without knowing about each other then maybe they are somewhat of an objective truth.

Remember, life rewards the prepared!