SUCCESS AND THE CONTENT OF OUR CHARACTERS. (Part 1)

“Check the content of your character. It is the first thing people notice about you.”

What will you say when you think the affected party you are talking about is not present or cannot hear you? What do you really say when you are in the comfort of your in-group or race? Thomas Macaulay, the nineteenth-century British historian, professed, that “the measure of a man’s real character is what he would do if he would never be found out”. A case in point is the ‘bigoted’ campaign gaffe of the former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in response to a comment by Gillian Duffy, a Rochdale voter, out of earshot when he entered his car. Unfortunately for Gordon Brown’s, microphone was still on and his gaffe was exposed. The late French President, Jacque Chirac was caught on tape, commenting on how bad British food was when he said, “you cannot trust people who have such bad cuisine”. The late Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi thought he was complementing the Obamas when he remarked that they were “Suntanned”.

There are numerous incidences to this effect where well-respected people in society have said or done ridiculous things when they felt no one was watching or listening. It has often led to their downfall in most cases. In the case of Gordon Brown, it was one of the things that contributed to his losing the British elections of 2010. Nor can we forget the “Hymietown” remark in 1984 by the Reverend Jesse Jackson – then the leading contender for the nomination of the Democratic Party to be their candidate for United States President. It happened when Jackson in private conversations in January 1984 with Milton Coleman, an African-American reporter for the Washington Post, when Jackson referred to Jews as “Hymies” and to New York as “Hymietown”. It almost derailed his campaign and cost him a lot of votes, especially from the American Jewish community, for the nomination. Jackson later apologized for his remarks.

So, what can we make of the aforementioned behaviors? Simple, it points to the true content of the?character of not just these leaders who committed these gaffes but to each of us. It points to our true characters, the one we hide from others, different from the fa?ades?we wear (Jekyll and Hyde). Mark Twain once said that “everybody is a?moon and has a dark side which is never shown to?anybody” and some people are good at hiding that?dark side of who they truly are. It is often in slip-ups?like those of Gordon Brown, Jesse Jackson and others/each of us that the?“dark side” is exhibited. In some instances, advances?in technology like digital technology, video recordings?and forensic science has forcibly exposed, or will expose this dark?side of most of us, forcing us to fall from grace to grass.?

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