Character Pillars: Responsibility

Since responsibility involves being accountable for our actions, purusing excellence, and exercising self-restraint, it's pretty safe to say that many prisoners have not developed responsibility in their lives, either before or during prison. Just observing the behavior of many prisoners will give you an understanding of why so many prisoners re-offend after release. 

I recently saw an encouraging local news piece about companies that are hiring ex-cons. Some guys want a second chance and are willing to work to prove that their change in behavior is permanent. When you look around in prison you can usually tell who those men are. There's more to the issue of recidivism than responsibility in a job though. 

Responsibility doesn't begin or end at a job. It starts in one's personal life. Being accountable for choices made, and choosing to pursue excellence, and exercise self-restraint with those choices. It's recognizing who you affect by your choices, and valuing yourself (and others) enough to make the right choices. 

Most people want to govern their own lives, but when the choices they make negatively affect others to the point of criminality, those people lose the ability to govern their own lives fully. However, I firmly believe that even though I'm in prison and thus unable to fully govern my life, I still maintain responsibility for the choices I make under these conditions. I choose to educate myself more fully. I choose to spend my time on productive activities instead of wasting my every moment in frivolous conversation and feel-good games. I choose to develop the character and spiritual maturity I need to be a better citizen when I'm eventually released. I also choose to maintain a clean bunk area, and dedicated myself to excellence in my prison job, despite the slave wages of $0.84/day.

It's choices like these, the small, everyday choices, that lead to developing the quality of responsibility in one's life. What choices can you make today to build or strengthen the character pillar of responsibility in your life?

Character Pillars: Respect

Happy New Year! I hope this year brings you many blessings, and hope for a beautiful future. Let's continue talking about the character pillars...

Respect is something we demand from others (whether earned or not) but not something we necessarily require from ourselves. It's easy to show respect to some people, while others we brush off with an air of superiority. 

While respect does encompass holding someone in high esteem, it also reflects such notions as civility, courtesy, decency, dignity, tolerance, and acceptance. 

Respect is highly valued by prisoners, but mostly on a one-way street. The same man that demands respect from you will the next moment be on the phone cussing out his girl. The same man who demands respect when you bump against him in the hallway ("Excuse me!") is the same man who sees you coming and refuses to move aside to let you pass. 

I don't think this duplicitous trait is exclusive to prisoners though. It's easy as human beings to want respect, but fail to give it. Until we get outside of ourselves and start seeing everyone with equal value, we won't build the pillar of respect. It doesn't cost much to give the grocery clerk a smile. To thank the bagger. To help the mother with the crying child. To let someone merge with their car. To speak with kindness to your child. To call your mother. To be civil, courteous, and decent. 

We all want respect, so why not give some? It's a rewarding investment, and you just might be surprised how giving others respect makes you feel.