I’ve spent a lot of time lately thinking about character. One day last week when the sun was warm and the dogwoods were in bloom, I walked alone down around the barn and sat on a makeshift chair, which was a 5-gallon paint bucket turned upside down.
I’m not sure why, but life somehow seemed clearer from that vantage point. A redheaded woodpecker landed on the stump of a dead pine that had the top twisted off in the storm that blew through last March.
A door on the old house is weatherworn but stands sturdy against the wind and rain.
I thought, as I sat admiring the door, that it had character. This tread pulled my mind in an unexpected direction, but I began thinking about character.
Character is not something you buy or something someone gives you. Character comes from trials, and it’s something you might never notice if not for the scars.
Sometimes you only glimpse at character in the way someone behaves when the ship hits the sand (to clean the old saying up and make it suitable for a family publication).
Life is a constant trial. Some days you're on top of the world, and other days you're lower than the icky stuff at the bottom of your fishbowl.
Some trials are lost because you fought a losing battle. Sometimes you had a chance to win but were outwitted, outmatched or outmanned/womanned (I made that word up), or because you ran out of juice before the sound of the bell.
Those trials where you thought you had a chance are the ones that leave the deepest scars. You scrapped, scraped and gave it your best shot only to come up a little short. These trials teach you lessons that help you grow.
It's in the aftermath of these losses where bits and pieces of character are born. Just because you win doesn't necessarily make you a winner. By the same token, losing doesn't make you a loser. The only way to become a loser is to stop trying.
Some of you are probably wondering how a story can begin with a 100-year-old door and wind circuitously on to thoughts about life lessons, but that sometimes happens when I write.
That old door seemed a fitting metaphor for my thoughts on character. It was young once, built at the hands of a craftsman, and through the years, it's blocked out nature's storms.
Sometimes a little rain blew in at the bottom, and the cold wind seeped in around the edges when the mercury dipped. But for the most part, it kept the families who lived there safe, warm and dry. The sun, and the cold, and the rain have left their mark, but character is something that transcends the trials of time.
People are like that too. I think it's beautiful.
Rick Watson is a columnist and author. His latest book Life Happens is available on Amazon.com. You can contact him at rick@rickwatsonmedia.com.
