C.
V. White Quote: "One bad act can wipe out years of character building."
Knowing
the End Result Can Help You Make Good Decisions
Sometimes it is difficult to see what
the end of a decision is going to be if you have no examples of the results of
people doing the things that you are about to make a decision to do. However, there are other times when you can
know exactly the end results of a particular decision and yet not think that
can happen to you. There is a thin line between wanting and having especially
where there is more than one possible outcome.
For instance, if you do something that
you know will cause you some kind of trouble, you may reason that if you get
caught you will get special favor and not have to pay the price. However, you
realize that there is a price that should be paid and that price is very
unpleasant, dangerous or maybe even requires incarceration of some kind. As an adult, you have to count the cost and
decide if you are willing to take the risk of the worst case being the judgment
that you will have to face, if it is not then why take the risk.
Many times people believe that they will
get away with some things because they saw or heard of some else getting away
with that same thing. That is a childish
attitude; children will sometimes point out to their parents what a sibling, a
friend or a neighbor did to get the parents to overlook something that they did
wrong. However, that never works because
the parents know that the child has to deal with what they did wrong and get
that corrected. It does not make what
was done a right thing to do just because someone else did it. Therefore, you cannot assume that your judgment
for what you do that is bad or evil will get you the same judgment that someone
else received good or bad. You can work
on your character for twenty years and commit one bad act and wipe out all of
your accomplishment to set your life in the order you desired in one day. You have twenty years of good character
reports and if you need a character reference you can ask almost anyone you
know and get a good one. But when you make a decision to do something bad, thinking that you will not get caught or you
will not get the worst end of the deal, you have to count the cost seriously
and ask yourself if you want the result that you should get for doing that
particular thing.
If you make the decision to go ahead to
do what you planned then you risk losing everything and having to start over,
you can’t blame anyone, nor can you point out what someone else did as your
defense. Parents are forgiving of their
children because it is their job to teach and train them when they do things
that need correcting, but adults are not so forgiving, if you commit the crime
they want you to do the time. Parents
are the safety net that children have in place to protect them when they come
to them with that foolishness, but adults do not have that safety net in place
and what they do will not be overlooked because of what someone else did or did
not do.
Once your character is damaged, you have
to now look for someone who likes you and will give you a good character
reference based on your relationship with them and not on your character. Count the cost and make decisions that will
keep you out of trouble and move you forward, not decisions that will shut you
down or send you backwards. Your time is
valuable so use it wisely and try not to lose it because you think you will not
get caught.
