Tag: trust

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Never Leave Home Without Good Character Traits

Good character traits are paramount when it comes to overcoming pressure or challenges. It’s the difference sometimes in whether to give in or stick to our own values or whether to give up or keep it moving.

With the unprecedented pressures on teenage girls nowadays, I am delighted to hear of the return of emphasis on character building. The first podcast in our new series, with Paralympian Elizabeth Wright, who advocates character building throughout schools in the UK, deals with the topic. It is out May 15.

Meanwhile, talking about character building brings a breath of fresh air to the debate on how to address some of the modern-day pressures we all face. Sadly, for some time now personality traits have served as the moderator for what is acceptable and what is not.  And when someone is either out of character or displays bad character traits, we often hear: that’s just the way she is.

Call me old fashioned but I call it bad company, bad character. Surely, it is unreasonable to pass off unkindness, rudeness, disloyalty and the lot as just the way someone is.

When I was growing up, I think the emphasis on character building was still on trend, if you will. It might have been losing its steam, but I knew the importance of good character traits in not only building good solid relationships, but also in achieving success in any undertaking.  Another story on whether I always displayed good character or not, but I did understand it.

If I wanted my parents to trust me, then I had to be honest and if I wanted my friends to trust me, then I had to be loyal. And the one time in my teenage life (surely there have been others) when I wasn’t loyal, I suffered painful emotional consequences seemingly for ages. I won’t go into the situation and hope others involved have long since forgotten, but this betrayal of sorts called my integrity into question. All I will say is that there was a popular boy involved. Never mind.

Anyhow, not only did I take a harsh fall from the throne of grace in the eyes of a friend or two and possibly a relative, I crashed landed in my own mind’s eye. It took years to rebuild my own self-esteem and to forgive myself for the deed, even if it was small. But the point is this: without integrity, I might have never known that I was out of character. 

Good character traits can and often do serve as a radar in relationships. Also, good character traits can see us through an achievement and aid us in the worst of times.

When it comes to achieving, I’ve always been slightly above average and slightly below excellent, but where I sit in the great in between is powered by my character traits of perseverance, optimism, reliability, conscientiousness and self-discipline to name a few. Though I wouldn’t take nothing for my journey, there are bits about it that I didn’t really appreciate–having to go to choir rehearsal every Friday night (okay one or two out of the month), lead a song when I could not sing, and attend Sunday School every Sunday morning and participate in the discussions.

But these activities, like them or lump them, fed into my character and drove me to pick up the phone as a young media specialist in New York City and pitch a story, even if I did dread it; sing from a stage in Poland to an audience, who insisted I had the voice of Whitney Houston until they heard it in song; do the right thing in enormous sticky situations, although I didn’t always feel like it; and most recently dig deep and speak up on a overcrowded broadcast platform, when I felt a bit mismatched.

Through these experiences and others, I have come to learn over the years never to leave home without my good character traits. As for the bad ones, I’ve resorted to waiting awhile to keep them in check and I must say the benefits have been enormous.

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What Dating Has To Do With Self-Discovery?

When we talk about dating, we often hear about either the romanticised version of it—finding a happily ever after—or the complexities—not finding a happily ever with all the pitfalls in trying too.

There must be a somewhere in between, right! And as I think back to my teen years and consider the insightful information from relationships counsellor Cat Williams in our latest podcast, UIO: On Dating Inside Out, I’ve had a lightbulb moment.

This middle ground must have to do with self-discovery. Great, you might tell yourself. I think I know a bit about me. Of course, you do. But here is the thing: anytime we venture into something new, there are oodles of opportunities for growth and in this growth, we often have revelations, that we might not have otherwise discovered.

And with these revelations, if you don’t like them, you can use the experience to change. And if you do like what you learn, use it to get even better.

Thinking back to my teen years, I had a few experiences that fit the bill. It took me only once to discover that I didn’t like the idea of someone believing he had the right to touch me because we were dating. At a basketball game, my boyfriend thought it would be a good idea to sit behind me, giving me little choice but to lean back on him and from there he proceeded to touch me completely inappropriately.

First of all, I felt humiliated and then mortified. I hadn’t had any physical closeness with him and had no intentions of doing so. Yet he assumed that he had the right to touch me. What gave him that idea? What does he think of me? Next, all I could think was if my mom and dad hear about this, there goes my cheerleading days and rightly so. Somehow, I wriggled out of the tortuous situation and broke off the relationship at the first opportunity, probably the next day. But what I didn’t do was tell him why I broke it off, at least I don’t remember telling him.

So, what did I learn? First, there was the bit about self-confidence. I didn’t have the confidence to speak out on the matter, then and there. This came as a shock to me because I had no problem speaking out at home. Next, I learned how important reputation was to me and still is. In addition, I learned about the importance of family. I felt that I had somehow violated a trust between me and my parents. And it suddenly dawned on me that I wanted to be a trustworthy person, not only with my parents but in general.

For years afterwards, I had a guilt about the experience with loads of questions. Why did I let it happen? Why didn’t I do something about it, then and there. Why did I think it was something I did that made him behave badly and so on? And later, as I was talking to an acquaintance who was in her teens about the experience, I recounted the positive lessons I had taken away, too. I remember how moving forward I escaped such situations by taking responsibility for where I sat and how I sat.

And I left school with my good name in-tact and with my family values in tow and a desire to go off to New York City someday. And I did with the lessons of confidence and much more close to my chest. Fast forward all these years later and I am still learning from the experience or re-learning, that is.

As Cat Williams points out in On Dating Inside Out, objectification has nothing to do with the person being objectified, nor does bullying. What has to do with you is how you handle it. It’s all about self-discovery. For more hot tips, check out the podcast on iTunes as well as Soundcloud or subscribe on this site to hear more about how to navigate dating for the best possible outcomes right in the space you are in. Oh and yeah, don’t forget to have fun. A lesson I stumbled upon, too.