To attack corporate greed while living in your own world of personal greed is to throw stones at a giant for doing on a large scale what you’re doing on a smaller one. The difference is in degree, not kind. First, remove yourself from the problem to have the credibility to call others to action.

Honesty, of the “my-word-is-my-bond” variety, seems to be an endangered species. But it shouldn’t be. It should be protected more actively than any species on the brink of extinction. Here’s why…

Would you consider yourself a loyal friend? If so, to what are you loyal? To the friendship? Or to the person you are friends with? Do you see the difference?

Circumstances less often create the person as they reveal who we already are. Certainly, they help shape us over time. But at any particular moment, trying circumstances show us a truer mirror than we may want to peer into. This is why…

If we protect our computer systems with spam filters and virus protection and firewalls and the like, why do we so quickly download such awful garbage into the most important memory storage system we will ever own?

Too often, our words get drowned in the noise of our own behavior. We tell others to live one way and yet fall woefully short ourselves. This is inevitable because we are all imperfect beings. The problem is less our inconsistency and more our lack of humility.

When it seems like everyone has betrayed you, don’t lose hope. Remember, most people are decent. Even when it is difficult to see, most are behind the scenes of life, doing the work of living decent lives.

The truth of the matter is that the mind records all it experiences. Add sharp emotion to the experience, and you have a recipe for an elephant-like memory of the nitty gritty. So can forgetting the acts of others against us truly be forgotten? Not likely. So what could the admonition to forgive and forget really mean then?

It’s been said that courage is the point at which all other virtues are tested. And indeed, there are not many virtues that will not be tested at some point and in some way. Our patience, trust, kindness, compassion, perseverance, and other personal virtues will hit that wall, push up against that moment, that set of conditions or that person who will push you to the edge.

Guilt is a tool or mechanism that a well-working conscience uses to communicate to the heart. When we don’t live up to our values, our hearts are pricked with guilt, shame and regret. But we’re not supposed to stay there, letting the guilt settle in and take up residency. It’s a warning signal in the dark of our choices that sends the message to course correct.

Does your moral compass point true north? Or is it a little askew? And how would you know? There are, of course, people now and through history who thought they were doing right when everyone else knew otherwise. So how do you know where your moral compass is pointing?

Have you heard of the parable of the long spoons? It goes something like this: A man was once taken on a tour of hell and was surprised by what he saw …

“Who you want to be is irrelevant to who you are if who you daily choose to be is different than who you wish you were.” Who we are and who we believe we should be are not always one and the same. Your Ideal You is likely somewhat higher than your Actual You. And so we read posts like this one looking for inspiration to nudge us down that path. Come see three areas we can improve on to become better people.

Until recently, willpower seemed like the unwanted stepchild of the character family. But willpower, it turns out, is not a self-imposed prison sentence at all. It actually frees and liberates us to pursue our best selves as possible.

True spirituality cannot be developed in a vacuum. It cannot be exercised in isolation. To me, spirituality is connecting with the divine and letting that connection change us inside, so that we become something different than we were before the connection.

When you hold on to resentment or anger or hatred, letting it eat you up from the inside out, your mind gets stuck in a continuous loop. You replay the offense over and over again, unable to free yourself from the person you most want to get away from. Well, it’s time that ends. Learning to forgive your offender will finally free yourself of that mental loop and open yourself to a life filled with more love and more happiness.

Pledging to live up to a set of standards, to something higher and larger and more eternal than self-serving and immediately-gratifying impulses may be considered an insignificant step in the process of actually doing the work of building character. But it’s in the small steps that miles are covered and continents crossed … and a character is fashioned.

Are you an emotional bully? Perhaps you suspect you may be, but are not quite sure. We often go through life with blinders on, very aware of what others are doing, seeing “clearly” what motivates their behavior, while not clearly seeing our own. Instead, we justify and excuse in ourselves the very same behavior we would never tolerate in others. That being the all-too-frequent case, the following characteristics should provide insight into what may have largely been ignored until now.

This Thursday, we will celebrate Thanksgiving here in the United States. The very first nationwide proclamation of a day of Prayer and Thanksgiving was made by George Washington in 1789. Since then, Thanksgiving has morphed into a different kind of observance, one punctuated by football, turkey and day-after mega sales. Here are 5 ways to add fun and meaning to your holiday observances.

I’m convinced that each of us has a superhero waiting to be let loose no matter where we are or who we identify with at this particular moment in our lives. I believe you are a superhero, even if the hero part hasn’t been fully identified or coaxed from its inner lair. It’s our job to discover how to release the powers already there, dormant perhaps, but waiting to be discovered, developed and unleashed.