For the purposes of our own growth, development and eventual maturity, we are meant to forge a passage through, sometimes, psychologically challenging events and experiences that collude to forge and newer, sterner and much more resolute character. As broad a statement as that may sound, its application is all inclusive, which means, we are all somewhat ‘at the mercy’ of our social and intra-psychological interactions; which collaborate to either strengthen or weaken our existing characters as individuals.
Our character working in tandem with our personalities are forged quite early in our lives, which explains why (and how) it forms a core of our being and very much a fundamental ‘back-board’ from which we ‘bounce off’ many of our everyday decisions.
Like many of our psychological resources, the inevitability lies in the fact that, we are not exempt from having these resources strained, tested and, sometimes, re-shaped in daily different interactions we have, call for the use of different intra-psychological resources.
Essentially, (believe or not), this is the exact process which the development of our character follows as we mature and begin to make sense of the people and the world around us. For the most part, situations, events and experiences that have the potential to grow us (as individuals) are not the ones that are ‘comfortable to feel’ or go through, instead, it is the ‘bad experiences’ that really provide the lessons on how to become a better person.
For context purposes, failure (at anything) is often considered a chastening experience that destroys an individual from ‘the inside’ eroding most of their psychological resources. However, character development often looks at the bright side and in this case, failure takes on the guise of being a propellent that the individual can learn from and use those lessons valuably to retry and achieve that specific goal.
You could think of plenty other experiences we could use as propellents; rejection, any kind of humiliation or embarrassment, neglect (whether early or late in life), poor decision-making and even the age-old heartbreak.
Since most of this is an internal process that is usually specific to the individual, responsibility should be firmly in the hands of that individual to find a way to ‘bounce back’ from setbacks and use that experience to better themselves moving forward.
A lot of our character shows when we are in the midst of tribulations and exhausting experiences or in stressfully tense instances, where in most cases, our reaction has to be measured and calculated. It is for this reason that we need to have an awareness of where we are intra-psychically in order for us to realise the areas in which we need to grow and mature in, for our own sake, as well as for the sake of those we interact with on a daily basis.
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