CxD #112

Change; Presidential Character Inquiry

1. Did you know your character is malleable? That means if you begin to look at how your physical perceptions, feelings, thoughts, personality and sense of self awareness interact, you’ll notice all these things always change from context to context, and that you can intentionally alter who you are by changing how you respond to each interaction, no matter how small. Recognizing character as a river is something of a miracle. Just because you said something mean on Monday, doesn’t mean you have to say something mean on Tuesday, as long as you recognize that what you said on Monday was mean. So not only can you change, you are change.
   

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2. The hardest part of change is having the thought “I see a reason and a desire to change my life.” In the jiu-jitsu world, it’s been said the hardest belt to attain is the white belt. That’s because the majority of people never even have the thought to enter the dojo, or if they do, they come up with all the excuses why they have more important things to do. But once they walk through the door, the training itself is like a river that begins to carry you, no matter how turbulent it might be.
   

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   Photo credit for the New York Times: Tamir Kalifa (a CxD reader!)
   

3. There are currently seven viable candidates to be the next president of the United States:
   
   Donald Trump
   Bernie Sanders
   Joe Biden
   Mike Bloomberg
   Elizabeth Warren
   Pete Buttigieg
   Amy Klobuchar
   
   How do you understand these candidates in terms of their character?
   
   Imagine you had to rank them according to these six character dimensions, 1-10, with 10 signifying complete development of the left hand term (e.g. Generosity) and 1 being the full extent of the right hand term (e.g. Selfishness):
   
   A)Generosity/Selfishness
   B)Ethical Conduct/Corruption
   C)Inclusivity and tolerance/Prejudice and impulsivity
   D)Energy and Vision/ Lack of principled means and plans
   E)Capacity for self-awareness and grounded equanimity/Myopic self-deception and agitation
   F)Wisdom and Right Action/Delusion and Hurtful Action

   So one (completely made-up) response may be:
   Joe Biden––
   8 Generosity
   7 Ethical Conduct
   9 Inclusivity
   4 Motivation and Vision
   6 Self-Awareness
   7 Wisdom
   = 41

   Please add a comment to support the candidates’ evaluations, so we have a better sense of how you arrived at your numbers.
   
   
   This issue of CxD is going out to subscribers and non-subscribers alike, so post your replies in the comment section, or send an email to cxd@characterbydesign.org to allow your replies to stay private. I’ll post reader responses in the next issue, unless something goes horribly wonky.

   And if you find this exercise useful or problematic, it would be good to understand why you think that as well. Last word: this is less a question of “figuring out” or “ranking” character than it is an exercise in how we determine and evaluate character, especially in those who will have a profound impact on our culture and society. So I’m curious what the varying forms of replies will be.