by Lil’ Gucc, San Mateo
I have recently read that people that have gone through the most have the most character. Well, actually I read a couple of quotes that suggest that. One of my favorites is, “Character is a virtue of hard times.”
Sometimes I sit and think, “What does this mean?” I think it’s only hard for me to comprehend because I still really don’t understand the meaning of virtue. From what I do know or at least from what I perceive is that your character is how you take your hard times and run with them.
Some people fold under the pressure of hard times and they let those times defeat them. That’s why we have a whole lot of drug addiction. It is truly a disease, but so is giving up. If you think about it, becoming a drug addict is just giving up. Instead of you just saying you give up, you give up your life to a substance and letting a drug control your life. When you do that, it’s showing a weak trait in your character. I’m not putting myself above anybody. We are really all equal and the only one above us is God. I don’t know what area my character falls under. But I can tell you how I handle my hard times.
Sometimes I tend to stress because I am human. Right now, I’m bettering myself in every way. I’ve been getting good at drawing, been getting big, working out and I’ve been reading a whole lot of autobiographies, trying to work my brain out. Every now and then I get stuck in a rut, but I climb out. I make sure I don’t dig deeper. That’s the worst thing to do when you’re inside a rut. I’m going to come out of the rut stronger, smarter and more aware than when I fell into it.
I try and be the best me that I can. I survive my hard times by keeping myself busy with things that are actually going to help improve my lifestyle. I do my time, instead of letting my time do me. I’ve been teaching myself to write in cursive and how to draw, bringing my reading to new levels and becoming mentally and physically stronger. I just want to persevere through all my hard times. I feel like if I give up while I’m at the bottom, I don’t deserve to be at the top.
If you give up during a hard time, that’s how you are always going to be remembered. You will be known as a person that’s always quitting. People will never feel they can depend on you because you aren’t reliable. As soon as the getting gets hard, you grab a life vest and jump ship, not caring if you’re stranded in the middle of the sea or if your crew is alright.
The most common thing here is, “It’s not my problem.” People who say this rarely have goals. Say you have a job helping out immigrants filling out papers and they don’t speak any type of English, and you say; “That’s not my problem.” That makes you a clown. It is your problem because that’s your job. Nine times out of ten, when people say it’s not their problem it is actually their problem. It just shows that they won’t or can’t deal with the problem at hand. To me, all of that shows character.
So, what this quote means to me is your personality is all built off what type of person you are in a crisis. Do you only think about yourself? Do you try and save people? Or do you simply just freeze up under the pressure and say you can’t do it. Hard times don’t last but your personality is forever real still.