What is "Character"?
The LiveReal Quiz. Can you take it?
article by LiveReal Agent "Dante"
Who, or What, is "Character"?
(multiple-choice format)
A) It's something lots of people talk about, but not very many really understand.
B) It's a basic quality of decency and integrity, justice and goodness.
C) It's a fancy name for "personality."
D) No one really knows, but still, you know it when you see it.
E) It's another term for one's inborn, inherent temperament or disposition.
F) It's doing the right thing.
G) OK, it's the ability of knowing what the right thing to do is, and doing it.
H) It has something to do with wine, sniffing corks, and the effort to look sophisticated.
I) It is the ability to make a decision and carry it out.
J) It's what people congratulate themselves for having when things turn out well.
H) It's what people scold themselves for having when things do not turn out well.
K) It's something that doesn't matter, is unimportant.
L) It's something that matters incredibly, and is very important.
M) It's self-control.
N) It's the number of factors a person can keep in mind and act on them all intelligently.
O) It's what people mentally probe or scan each other for when they first meet, in an effort to "feel out" a psychological advantage.
P) It's a unique, distinguishing feature of one's personality that everyone has.
Q) It's the ability to rise above one's "animal nature."
R) It's a word that people use to explain the perceived vices and weaknesses of everyone in the world except for their own.
S) It's what you do when no one is watching.
T) It's much easier to say what it's not, for example, if your husband is in bed with another woman, he wouldn't have it.
U) It is something that has to do with the presence of "virtues" such as compassion, commitment, discipline, sacrifice, love, integrity, loyalty, responsibility, courage, faith, and others, and the absence of "vices" such as pride, envy, selfishness, anger, greed, laziness, ignorance, etc; i.e., "moral excellence."
V) It is something that has to do with the presence of "virtues" such as thinness, conversational skill, fashionableness, social grace, confidence, interestingness, wealth, intelligence, politeness, high status, the ability to intimidate, the ability to dress well, charisma, large pectorals, firm buttocks, and other qualities; and the absence of "vices" such as physical unattractiveness, awkwardness, irritating mannerisms, meanness, inarticulateness, dullness, timidity, low status, bad breath, etc.
W) It's the part of you that survives death.
X) It's the particular tapestry of weaknesses and strengths, virtues and vices, traits and characteristics, that are woven into your personality.
Y) It is another word for "person" such as Jabba the Hut, Ahab, Indiana Jones, Hannibal, Darth Vader, Achilles, in movies, plays, poems, novels, stories, and life.
Z) Ernest Becker: "Human character is a Vital Lie."
AA) It is some inner aspect of oneself, revealed by the way one carries oneself, walks, eats, laughs, talks, or works; by one's clothes, car, house, friends, pets, hair color, body weight, skin tone; by one's eyes, body shape, voice, palms, facial features, tatoos, and various other things.
BB) The Princess and the Pea: A beautiful princess tries to sleep on top of several mattresses, and underneath the mattresses is a single pea. Even though the Princess kept piling on more and more mattresses, she was so sensitive that the pea made her uncomfortable and unable to sleep.
We are like the Princess (we typically spend our lives throwing on more and more mattresses), the "pea" is the basic problem of life we all face, and those mattresses are like our "character."
CC) Character is the collective force of the summation of all one's habits.
DD) It's something essentially fixed and unchangeable, determined at birth by hundreds, perhaps thousands, of various factors.
EE) It's something that can freely be molded, built, honed, sculpted, forged, and freely constructed; essentially, something that is largely within your control
FF) It is the aspect of yourself that is revealed under pressure.
GG) It is a certain quality that somehow makes a person seem admirable, respectable, poised, superior, that has absolutely nothing to do with one's social or economic status.
HH) It is something that is acquired through a long, deliberate, and repititious labor of continually choosing to do the right thing, especially when it's hard to do.
II) It's something that's simultaneously ineffable, mysterious, and impossible to pin down, and at the same time, somehow, obvious.
JJ) All of the above.
HH) None of the above.
KK) Some of the above.