Ethics Box - Exploring Personality and Character for sake of self-improvement

Tapsearch Com Editor and Artist Ray Tapajna with EthicsBox.com - studies Personality and Character for the sake of self-improvement. His mission is to probe ways for a new "Solidarity" for self, others and society under the guiding thought that each of us want to feel all together in one place at one time. It is also obvious that workers have no voice in the process of Globalization and Free Trade and hopefully the EthicsBox will prompt a change. See a posts about the "unnetted" at Bizarre Politics com and The Rationale com. Later we will get into the power of the spoken word and how all of us can improve ourselves in this discipline too. It is obvious workers have no voice in the process of Globalization and Free Trade.

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Ethics Box - May 2008

What can your will do for you (LINK)

May 28th 2008 16:42

In exploring personality and character in hope of improving it, we can study what our will can do for us. What can we reasonably expect from our will. One can credit the will with too much power or too little. If we become discouraged with our will to change things, we may have credited the will with too much power. However, if we give the will too little credit , we will never prompt self-improvement.

Find in your will your angels of hope

The will is free to choose right or wrong. When the stage is set for choosing something, it is the will that gives the final signal. It is one thing to call the will free and quite another to say the will is all powerful. Many try to will their way to fortune without any success. A person can will to stop drinking but it will not stop the person from liking a drink. In this we see the will having control over its own desires. It can stop, perhaps, the desire for food by substituting a gum but still we must have a good idea of its place relative to all our other faculties.

One good way to do this, is to imagine the will as the rider and the body as the horse. The rider and the horse are two different things. If we think of the horse as a gentle obedient creature, we run the risk of exaggerating the power of the will. If we think of the horse as a unmanageable beast, we run the risk of underestimating the power of the will. Certainly, anyone who has tried to play par golf will agree the faculties of a person do not obey the will. One cannot order the hand to perform high precision skill just by deciding to do so.

The will can order the hand, but if the hand is not trained, then the result will be just a sorry attempt. The will can choose the hand to move in certain ways and train it but this tells the will it needs patience and understanding to develop the proper stroke.

The understanding of character is based upon a correct view of the will. Character is built and "trained" upon the pattern of one's choices and the records of acts of the will over a period of time. So, if the will is to build character efficiently, it must not only train itself to will the good, but it must also train the other faculties humans have to obey.

(Next : How well can the will disitinguish the bad from the good? Do bad choices in little matters affect choices in big matters and vice versa? Are we willing to pay the price for bad choices and take long detours away from the life ideal?

Based on notes by Father McQuade and Ray Tapajna - Next installment will explore further training of the will

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A High Way and a Low (LINK)

May 27th 2008 22:40

It is the will which determines all the real choices in life. The intellect identifies the choices and then the will takes over. One who forms the habit of choosing well and according to moral law is developing a good character and vice versa. It is the will, ultimately, that determines character, and therefore the will should demand considerable attention in any pursuit related to personality and character.

This is brought out beautifully in a little poem by John Oxenham entitled:

" A High Way and a Low "

To every man there openeth
A way and ways and a way
And the High soul climbs the high way
And the low soul gropes the low.
And in between on the misty flats
The rest drift to and fro
But to every man there openeth
A high way and a low
And every man decideth
The way his soul shall go.

The intellect is a human act that tells us what is what. The intellect may be considered higher in dignity in that the act of knowing is greater than the act of desiring. However, the will what chooses the way to go. It is greater in power and influence, since to a large extent the intellect is piloted in its activity by the will.

The intellect is the faculty by which we know things are. The will is the faculty by which we desire what is good and reject what is bad. However, the will can even choose the degrees one develops their intellect. The will has the power to order the intellect to investigate. It cannot make the intellect see as true what is actually false or vice versa. The intellect searching for truth, will necessarily see things as they are no matter what the will seeks. Harmony only follows when the will abides to the intellect search for true reality.

The priority rests in training the will to choose what the intellect holds as the truth.
I recently told a college student to act in the now and choose things as if in the future according to thinking what one will wish they would have done in the past that you did not do and the things one wishes they did not do in the pass. It is a training yourself in a back to future mode. Choices in little matters cultivate what you do in the bigger ones. And no matter what you think, the intellect will demand the truth and the right way.

Avoid the detours in life

Think and choose what really sets you free so you do not take a detour to places you wish you never journeyed to - search for harmony in your personality and character using the proper harmony of your intellect and will.

Reference: based on notes by Father McQuade