A Culture of Character
Culture is Key
The state of the world -all of the good things and all of the bad- is a reflection of the people within the world. More specifically it is a reflection of the character of those people.
Therefore, to change the world we must change our Character.
To do that, we must make character something that people value.
And people value what the culture values.
Our Vision
Our Vision is to change our culture from one that seemingly values only the worst behavior into one that is permeated by and highly values people with character.
Specifically, people with character means: people who value and work to develop positive traits such as honor, integrity, honesty, work ethic, discipline, strength, fearlessness, humbleness, tenacity, resiliency, emotional maturity, patience et cetera. As well, this involves also working to overcome negative issues such as anger, selfishness, laziness, anxiety, fear, greed, arrogance, pettiness, ignorance. As people live their lives, they work to develop or overcome one thing at a time.
Within this culture, parents teach their children about integrity, respect, discipline, hard work, emotional maturity, positive life goals. These children are not shielded from every form of difficulty and discomfort. They are held accountable for their actions. Thus, they grow emotionally and develop will power and strength of mind and are not weak, spoiled and fragile…
People are taught the value of character at home, through influential family members, from adults in their lives who live these principles and clearly value them. They learn about character from people in society, popular culture, even from online influences the same way in our current culture people learn to value wealth, fame, materialism, superficial looks et cetera.
People choose to treat others well, work hard, seek fundamentally important things, because this is how they were raised. Individuals live their lives in a way emanating both appropriate kindness and strength, (not excessive kindness without consequences) being an example to their friends, family, co-workers, people they meet making it clear that they are honest and forthright, disciplined and honorable. They choose colleagues because they are honest, skilled and have work ethic. They value someone in the news because that person stood by their principles, not because they have lots of money.
People learn to deal with emotions through experience and growth and thus are equipped for the difficulties of life, no longer needing to seek refuge in drugs and alcohol. Relegating spoiled adults and their public temper tantrums to a thing of the past. People respect and value their own lives as well as others, thus never choosing a path of crime. People choose to support their neighbors through difficult times. Never thinking to loot or destroy property because they respect what it took to build something, they mentally can understand and care how their actions affect others. If someone does do something wrong, they take responsibility for their actions, not blaming others, not claiming to be a victim. As well, people value growth so they seek a life path that is based on building a meaningful life with loved ones, not pursuing selfish goals of personal pleasure, status and wealth.
People do not avoid difficulty, discomfort, pain and hard work. Because avoiding these things creates weak people incapable of regulating their thoughts and emotions, people who can’t deal with even slightly difficult situations. To the contrary, in each situation they choose the difficult path because this provides the most opportunity to grow.
Businesses and leaders choose to do what’s right because it’s the right thing to do. Not performative gestures and talking points that they don’t really mean. They make this choice because they have character themselves. In fact, all people making decisions simply because it’s the right thing to do. Not only factoring whether it benefits themselves or not. Always doing the right thing, even if it makes things more difficult for themselves.
In short, living a positive, meaningful life, developing the traits that lead to success, but more importantly fulfilling our greater purpose. Living the way Christ calls us to. In addition to this, an incredible natural result of living this way is nothing short of a culture that overcomes the great problems in the world. Not some forced and false utopia, but a better world because we truly address the root cause.
And to be clear. We understand that life is difficult and people make bad decisions. We are not seeking to build a culture that is self-righteous and judgmental. It is not expected that everyone should be “perfect”. What’s important is that people understand the value in developing character and are always working to learn from their bad decisions always working to overcome their issues, always working to grow.
All of this is possible, if we can simply change our culture so that it highly values Character.
Our Mission
To build this culture we need to get more and more people to value these things, live them within their own lives, teach their children, talk about character at home. Talk about it amongst friends, co-workers, random conversations. Make it visible in our local communities. Make it valued in popular culture.
Therefore, our Mission is to live these principles, and spread them to such a degree as to transform the entire culture making the valuing of and development of Character a major aspect of the culture at large.
Our Goals
Fulfill these Details of Character Development:
- People will understand what character development is
- They will understand why its important
- They will understand how to do it
- And they will make it an important part of their lives
In these Areas of Culture:
- Family teaches to children
- Interpersonal Relationships
- Local Community Presence
- Social Media Presence
- Mainstream Cultural Presence
- Internet, Entertainment, Leaders, Organizations, Schools, Businesses, Public Figures
Program Details
When a Member joins The Order, they become part of a 5-10 man Team. Each Team chooses one or more listed “Area of Culture” above and works to spread the above “Details of Character Development” within that Area of Culture.
We grow The Order to have more and more Teams.
Eventually we have enough Teams that we permeate the culture with the value of Character Development.