Aim for the Highest Standard of Character.

*Excerpt from our forthcoming book.

“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.”
– Helen Keller

“Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have – life itself.”
– Walter Anderson

Some people worry about setting their standards too high for fear of missing the mark. Yet, it’s better to aim for the moon so you’ll fall among the stars as some might say. In the past some teachers believed that it would be easier to teach a child to write if they have an inferior copy of a text because, it was reasoned, they would see the end goal as closer and within reach. This can’t always be so, though. Instead, seeing a more perfect copy demonstrates that high standards and high levels of competency are possible if one is willing to work toward it. Perfect copy is not absolutely impossible; instead the lesson isn’t that small increments can eventually get one there but rather to aspire after the fact that whatever humans have done, one may also do.

Whatever is possible should be the aim. Did my limits permit, I might show that it is a part of the divine economy to place before his rational creatures a perfect standard of action, and to make it their duty to come up to it. Whatever is possible should be the aim with the understanding that before the final goal are numerous lessons and practice before the final high standard be attained and yet that highest form should guide the motivation and desire toward it.

Those who only aim at little, will accomplish little. Expect great things and attempt great things. Refusing this mantra produces more of the difference in the character, conduct, and success of people, than is commonly supposed. Some start in life without any leading goal at all; some with a low one; and some aim high:—and just in proportion to the elevation at which they aim, will be their progress and success. It is an old proverb that he who aims at the sun, will not reach it, to be sure, but his arrow will fly higher than if he aims at an object on a level with himself. It’s the same in the formation of character, except in one point. To reach the sun with an arrow is an impossibility, but you, my friend, may aim high without attempting impossibilities.

Let me repeat the assurance that, as a general rule, you may be whatever you will resolve to be. Determine that you will be useful in the world, and you shall be. Young men seem to be utterly unconscious of what they are capable of being and doing sometimes. Their efforts are often few and feeble because they are not awake to a full conviction that anything great or distinguished is in their power; your power.

But from what circumstances came Alexander the great, Cæsar, Martin Luther King Jr., Washington, Obama? Weren’t they once young men like you? What other than self-exertion, aided by the blessing of a higher power, rendered these men so conspicuous for usefulness? Rely upon it,—what these men once were, you may be. Or at the least, you may make a nearer approach to them than you are ready to believe. Resolution is almost omnipotent. Those little words, try, and begin, are sometimes the start of something amazing.

Saying, ‘I can’t,’ never accomplished anything;
‘I will try,’ has achieved wonders.

You can learn a lot from carefully examining the lives of prominent individuals who have built their lives on hard work and dedication, especially of those who are/were good as well as great. You’ll gain nothing from studying those who are popular or rich from luck or acting a fool. Nothing, unless you study them for the immense blessing they could have been to the world, had they devoted to the work of human improvement those mighty energies which were employed in destruction, hate, luck, or idiocy. Instead, imagine for a minute all the physical and intellectual energy of George Washington, the order and method of Einstein, the industry, frugality, and wisdom of Steve Jobs, and the excellence and untiring perseverance of Venice Williams, Michael Phelps, or Katie Ledecky, be united in each individual of the rising generation, who can set limits to the good, which they might, and inevitably would accomplish! Is it too much to hope that some happier age will witness this reality? Is it possible that your generation could be the one that provides pristine representations of these exact examples?