When the alarm rings in the morning, you have a choice. You can get up immediately, you can snooze it any number of times, or you can ignore it and sleep until you run out of slumber. Or until someone gets you up. I guess your chosen action depends on what comes next, and what the consequences of being late, or not showing up at all, are.
As with many things in life, it is a small matter, yet character is built through such seemingly small matters, through choices we make all the time. How conscious are you of your day to day choices?
According to Jim Rohn, personal success is built on the foundation of character, and character is the result of hundreds and hundreds of choices you may make that gradually turn who you are at any given moment into who you want to be.
You build character by how you respond to what happens in your life, whether it's winning losing, getting rich or dealing with hard times.
Still, the really amazing thing about character is that, if you're sincerely committed to making yourself into the person you want to be, you'll not only create those qualities, you'll strengthen them and re-create them in abundance, even as you're drawing on them every day of your life. That's why building your character is vital to becoming all you can be.
And taking the easy road won't build character.
In the comic Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin's father makes him do things he hates in order to 'build his character'. When you are tested you have an opportunity to grow into spaces that do not open up on the path of the familiar. And once you have been propelled through a door, who knows what you will find!
The 'small' everyday decisions are dots. And someday you will want to join them up to complete the picture. Question is, will it be the picture you want?