The Path to Personal Maturity

Gloria worked as a waitress in a coffee shop in Raleigh, North Carolina. On the surface of it, hers was a nondescript, unremarkable life. She had not even finished high school. But when she died suddenly, over two hundred people attended her funeral. Her stepdaughter gave the eulogy, recalling how her mother had accepted and nurtured her when she was a rebellious teenager and had changed her life. The mailman spoke up, remembering the cookies she had baked for him. The people who turned out for Gloria's funeral in such numbers were all people whose lives had been touched by this simple woman with a generous heart, who was ever reaching out to make life better for others.

Kevin Ryan uses the metaphor that character is engraved on the self, like a sculptor shaping and polishing a stone to reveal its innate beauty and create a fine statue.1 A person's very life becomes a work of art as he or she consciously practices good habits that deepen the mind and beautify the heart. Gloria had cultivated her character through thousands of small acts of giving and helping, until giving and helping became an ingrained habit. In the same vein, Abraham Maslow spoke of life as a process of "self-actualization." Confucius termed it "self-cultivation."

Aristotle defined good character as the inner disposition conducive to right conduct. This definition is particularly cogent, because it defines character as an inner property of personhood. This means that character is not a skill one learns, not a behavior one chooses to do in a particular situation, but is an aspect of one's very self. Character begins with innate capacities and is built up through experience and training. It grows to the extent that a person lives out his or her professed values. Character is self-embodied knowledge. A good or integrated character-in which the person's subconscious habits and conscious ideals are somehow aligned-may bring wisdom and a deep sense of personal meaning and purpose.

Pathways of Character Development

The human body forms as an embryo in the womb, grows through the childhood years and eventually matures physically into an adult. As with animals and plants generally, the body's growth is automatic.

A seed germinates and becomes a sprout, a growing sapling, and finally becomes a mature tree yielding fruit. The design of the mature tree lies latent within the seed. As long as the proper nutrients are supplied-sunlight, water, clean air and rich soil-growth follows according to the seed's innate design and the laws of nature. Animals likewise grow to maturity and bear offspring according to the innate pattern written into their genes and unfolding in their instinctive drives.

The inner aspect of a human being-character-also possesses innate tendencies that guide its development. The love of parents and the guidance of good teachers are input for the growth of the young person internally, just as food, water and air nourish the body externally. As he or she grows, the response to this input becomes more and more a matter of choice and will. Therefore, unlike the body, character does not grow automatically. Observing the great disparity in people's character, it is evident that moral development is not obtained except by making conscious effort and investment.

Psychology describes an optimal developmental pathway for moral development through a sequence of stages.2 Yet how far a person progresses on this pathway is variable, depending on upbringing, education, and the person's own efforts. Every person is endowed with a heart and conscience, providing a natural orientation towards morality and goodness. When the heart is nurtured in its aspiration for genuine love, and the conscience is supported by good choices in daily life, these moral faculties grow into the organizing center of a confident moral self with a strong sense of life's responsibilities. Psychologists Anne Colby and William Damon describe this process as the "progressive formation of a sense of self around a moral center."3 On the other hand, without proper rearing and upright living, a person's moral development may take one of the many "sub-optimal paths" which lead to stagnation.4

1Kevin Ryan and Karen E. Bohlin, Building Character in Schools (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1999), p. 11.

2Erik Erikson, Identity, Youth, and Crisis (New York: W.W. Norton, 1968); Lawrence Kohlberg, "Stage and Sequence: The Cognitive-Developmental Approach to Socialization," in D. Goslin, ed., Handbook of Socialization Theory and Research (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1969), pp. 347-480.

3Anne Colby and William Damon, Some Do Care: Contemporary Lives of Moral Commitment (New York: Macmillan, 1992).

4Elena Mustakova-Poussardt, "The Ontogeny of Critical Consciousness," Ph.D. dissertation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst MA, 1996.