Man's Greatest Power - Part I

The Greatest Power Known to Man

There is a power that is greater than the mightiest river, the strongest ocean current, the most violent storm, the greatest tsunami, and/or the most rattling earthquake ever experienced.  It is the power to make choices.

That power is so great that it has shaped governments, enslaved people, liberated the oppressed, and done much to change the shape of humanity.  It can be durable and unstoppable or it can be fragile and at the mercy of situations.

Circumstances Come and Circumstances Go

No one can choose the difficulties which come from living in an imperfect world, among imperfect people, in imperfect bodies.  However, no matter how dire the circumstance, still one can do one thing—a person can make choices.

History is replete with the stories of people who were mistreated, enslaved, and abused but…

Those same people made the choice to not give in to the difficulties.

Those same people made the choice to do what they could to overcome their situation.

Those same people made the choice to live above what might be expected of one in such circumstances. 

Certainly there are the failures most of which are lost from the pages of history.  However there are those maybe did not soared above the storms but with right choices made it through.  It is those who provide examples, challenge, and inspire.

Such a man was Captain and Explorer Ernest Shackleton.  After his ship was trapped in the ice of Antarctica and against all odds he navigated hundreds of miles across the ocean in an open boat, then without winter clothing crossed over a mountain range, and in doing so saved his crew from certain death.

Character and Choice

It is one’s circumstance that provides the opportunities for such choices that will cause one man to fly and another to flounder. It is not some super-hero that has made the difference but an average man who through strength of character and right choices carried the day.

One’s character determines how those choices are made.  It is character which then will navigate one through the situations and circumstances of one’s life.  Good character leads to good outcomes, even in failure.   Poor character leads to poor outcomes even when there is a measure of success. 

It is not the circumstance in which one finds himself that decides a man’s future, indeed it is the choices that such a man makes.

Character

What then is the character that will carry the day?  Very simply it is doing what is right no matter the cost.  It is tenaciously staying the course, ever plowing toward that which is right. Oh, not in the big decisions of life, most handle those with relative ease but it is in the myriad of small decisions which on the surface would seem of little importance.

It is doing what is right according to ethical truth not according to some whimsical morality such as situational ethics (an oxymoron to be sure) which shifts with the druthers of culture.  It is doing the right according to those higher ideals that have prevailed year after year since the beginning of recorded time.

To be continued…