Are you Tigger or Pooh?

I was involved in a conversation last night about personalities. The challenge was to figure out which Winnie the Pooh character best represents your life. I couldn't figure it out for me. A number of people in the group we were with identified with Eeyore or Rabbit, but those just aren't me. Tigger, likewise doesn't seem to match up. So I took a quiz.

Naturally, the discussion led towards whether or not we had a choice in our view of life. Are our predispositions an integral part of who we are, or do we have a choice in which lens we view life through. This was a much tougher question to answer, and one which we all wrestle with daily whether we know it or not. We don't have control of what goes on around us, so how can we expect to control how we approach life's challenges? When life is dishing up one insurmountable challenge after another, and the world is overwhelming you, what chance is there to alter how you look at the world? You barely have time to breathe, let alone the strength to change from a "worrier" to an "optimist". The best it seems you can do is weather the storm and just hang on. Personal growth isn't an option.

Or is it?

I read somewhere once that the most important things on the face of the earth are people. And that the only thing about people that lives forever is their character. The deeper the relationship with other people is, and the more time that passes, the more obvious this becomes. Strength of character is way more important than how much money you have, or how smart you are, or how successful you are in society. But wait, there's more. This book also suggested that every single decision and challenge we face in life has but one important outcome. Each of these situations shapes your character. I had thought about this before, but I'd always thought of it as "if I make this radical decision, I'll be changing my life - and my character". What I hadn't considered is that even when I follow the "same old same old" decision making process, I'm building my character. Every decision I make contributes to who I am, and how I will make the next decision. This means, that if I'm stuck in a rut of worry and distress, or of hopelessness and dispair, I'm only adding to the problem. I'm building a "stronger" character that I don't want to become.

Looking at the other side of this is much more positive. Everytime I make the "right" decision and weather a storm in a positive way, I'm building good character. This, in turn, gives me more strength to make another change for the next crisis. Even if I have trouble with the big stuff, I can still take postive steps with each and every little problem that comes up, and build up the character I need for the big stuff. This is great news!

And it also gives me a Point to Ponder. If character is one of the most important things on the face of the earth, and character is built through adversity, how short sighted is it of me to wallow in self pity? God is giving me the challenges every day that I need to become a better person. How sad it would be to go through life without challenge, and arrive at the far end without character. (for those of you following along with your mp3 players, cue "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor now)

As to which Pooh character I'm like? I'm not sure I really know. Oh bother.